Unexpected Sentiment
by bluebear77100
Summary: RE5-After the part where Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar cross paths with Wesker, Excella, and Jill; Chris is separated from Sheva and Jill while searching for his nemesis in the African Village. Krauser/Chris Wesker/Chris Contains: non-con, OOC, AU.
1. Wayward Mission

_**Wayward Mission**_

In the village of Kijuju, Chris Redfield had gotten separated from his partner. He and Sheva Alomar had been attacked by a mob of Majini who were infected with a variation of the Las Plagas virus. The Majini had basic human intelligence but lacked rationalization and follow the orders of the Majini infected with the control Plagas form. Chris was surrounded by Majini and there was no sign of his partner. The sheer number and degree of excitement of the infected around him told Chris he was in trouble. There were simply too many of them and things only got worse for Chris when he heard heavy lumbering footsteps. He lifted his eyes to stare up into the masked face of the executioner Majini.

The big man lifted his enormous axe and swung its sharp side down towards where Chris stood. Chris rolled under the man to avoid the heavy blade and raised his gun to fire at two Majini who were running at him with weapons raised above their heads. Their eyes were distant but hostile at the same time and murder was certainly their mission. Chris brought the two men down but was blindsided by a Majini who came at him from the right. The wrench in the man's hand smashed against Chris's head and he stumbled off balance. A Majini from the rear grabbed him by the forearms and yanked them behind his head. The native slammed him facedown to the dirt ground and straddled over his back. Chris grunted in discomfort as the infected man held his arms so that they were practically pressed against the back of his head, definitely in a position they were not meant to ever be in.

When Chris realized he couldn't break away, panic overtook him. He thrashed in the Majini's strong grasp but the other Majini were now standing around watching him. Before he could even begin to break free of his captor's hold, another Majini stepped forward and restrained Chris's legs. The brunette expressed his rage at being held down with a low growl and increased struggling.

"What have we got here? An American agent all the way out here? Tsk Tsk. And getting yourself trapped like this, not a good thing," a man spoke with a cocky air to it.

"If it's not a good thing then why don't you just let me go?" Chris snarled, unable to see who was speaking to him from his current position.

"You misunderstand," the man's gruff voice said to him. "It's not a good thing for you."

A pair of boots appeared in Chris's eye line as the man crouched down so his face was closer to Chris. The man wore brown, green, and gray camouflage pants and a tight black shirt. He wore a belt equipped with multiple weapons, fingerless gloves, and had short blonde hair and blue eyes. Most noticeably about this man besides the enormous muscles, was his badly scarred face. Currently, the man wore a smirk.

"What's your name, soldier?" the man asked him.

Chris only glared in reply which caused him to sigh with impatience.

"My name is Jack Krauser. Now yours...?"

Jack Krauser... Why did that name sound so familiar to him? Chris wondered to himself, frowning slightly. When Krauser could see his captive was not going to reply, he grabbed a fistful of Chris's hair and yanked his head up so that they made eye contact.

"I'm gonna lay out the situation for you. If you answer all of my questions truthfully, I will let you go. If you don't, then I will kill you."

"You'll kill me no matter what I do." Chris said to the man, narrowing his eyes.

"Don't tell me what I'll do, pretty boy. If you answer my questions, you will prolong your life. That's a certainty and I give you my word." Krauser told him.

"Prolong my life?" Chris asked him, suspiciously. He didn't like the words the bigger man had chosen to say.

Krauser smirked knowingly. "Well it's not like you can escape your inevitable death, is it? None of us can."

Chris stared silently at him for a moment before he finally voiced his obvious answer. "No."

Krauser tilted his head as if trying to figure Chris out. "No?"

"No I will not tell you who I am or answer any questions, so you might as well just kill me now."

Chris didn't want to die. But he also wasn't going to betray Sheva..or Jill. Relaxed in the fact that he would at least die protecting them, Chris accepted his death and waited for it. But it didn't come. Chancing a glance at Krauser's face, he saw the man seemed pleased with Chris's answer.

"I suppose it wouldn't be much fun if you gave it up so easily."

"What? I'm not giving you any information ever." Chris informed the man.

"We'll see about that." Chris heard Krauser say.

And then a heavy boot was coming towards his face and darkness swept all other thoughts away.

When Chris woke up, he was in a dimly lit room that appeared to be a storage place of some sort. His hands were bound with rope in front of him and his weapons were gone. He pulled himself to his feet and surveyed his new accommodations. Stone floors and walls and a few musty crates stacked here and there. The door itself was steel and a swift kick to it told him it was fairly sturdy.

"Feeling afraid?"

Chris jumped in surprise. Following the source of the voice he found that Krauser was standing in a darkened corner of the room, farthest from the door. He had been so quiet and still that Chris hadn't even noticed his presence. With a smooth laugh, the noticeably buff man drew away from the wall and folded his arms across his chest.

"I'll take that as a yes." Krauser said.

Chris narrowed his eyes at the other man. "What do you want from me?"

"I would have started with something easy such as your name. But clearly you have no interest in telling me so we can start with something different. Such as what you're doing out here in Africa."

"Is there a question in that?" Chris asked brazenly.

Krauser stared at him with complete seriousness now. "What are you doing in Africa? Who sent you and what is your mission? These are the things I want to know."

"Oh is that all?" Chris retorted. "No thanks. I have to keep some secrets or the ladies might get bored."

Krauser came closer to Chris and the brunette backed away until his back hit the wall. Something shiny flashed in the dim light and Chris saw the taller man now held a knife in his hand.

"Hm..humor as a defense mechanism."

"It's not-" Chris began to protest, but a knife pressed against the skin of his throat caused him to fall silent.

Chris swallowed nervously. How did he always get himself in these situations?

_Approximately two weeks later..._

Albert Wesker prided himself on always being in control. He was the manipulator and the schemer. He was the one in command and got whatever he desired. Sometimes he didn't get what he wanted right away but in the end, he always did get it. So it was only natural for him to be extremely irritated when he learned his plans to spread Uroboros had failed. And it had been Jill Valentine who was the one to undo all his hard work. It had to have been her because she was the only one who could have had the information Chris Redfield and his new partner had used to destroy his precious virus. Wesker remembered arriving at his airplane only to find Uroboros destroyed and he clenched his fists in frustration. This was the first time he ever felt truly outdone by Chris. His subordinate had finally succeeded in completely ruining his plans and it angered him to no end.

Wesker knew it was time to pack it in when the BSAA squads began showing up. It had taken them a few weeks, probably waiting for their agents to finish their reports before coming. They were clearly there with one mission. To erase any trace of viruses from the village and nearby areas. It was when one of the infected villagers came to inform him of the BSAA teams arrival that he first learned of their captive.

"Six teams have arrived so far," the African American villager infected with the control Plagas informed Wesker.

He stood before the blonde tyrant completely emotionless and staring blankly ahead.

"Very well." Wesker said. "You're dismissed."

"Should the prisoner be eliminated?" the Majini asked.

Wesker turned to look at the infected man, sharply. "What?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"The American agent," the Majini answered, seemingly still unaware that the blonde was uninformed.

"Where?" was all Wesker asked.

Wesker arrived at the storage room within minutes of his conversation with the Majini. He frowned and knew immediately who had kept him uninformed. The man who he had working for him was leaning against the wall near the room silently.

"Krauser. You failed to inform me of a captured American agent."

Krauser lifted his head and the two men's eyes met. Krauser was one of the few men who never regarded Wesker with fear even though the man was well aware of the tyrant's capabilities. Perhaps it was because Krauser himself was infected, or maybe it was because the man's enlarged ego had something to do with it. Wesker couldn't be sure. However, he wasn't too bothered by his lack of fear since the soldier had proven to be loyal and obviously respected Wesker and his plans.

"You were busy with your own plans. I didn't want some American runt to...distract you."

Wesker raised an eyebrow at the other man. "And after the plan failed...?"

Krauser paused and before he could answer, Wesker did for him.

"You were having fun with the American, weren't you? Thought I might order him to be killed so you decided not to mention the agent for awhile, hm?"

Krauser's silence confirmed his suspicions.

"What information did you get from the agent? Did you get his identity?" Wesker asked him.

"Nah, he wouldn't even give up his name."

Wesker glowered at his subordinate. The man couldn't even get information out of a prisoner? He was either far more lacking in skill than Wesker had first thought, or the agent was a very tough son of a bitch. Annoyed with Krauser in every possible respect, he waved the soldier away.

"Get out of my sight, Krauser."

With a grunt of discontentment, Krauser pushed himself off of the wall and strolled past Wesker.

"Oh and Krauser," Wesker started.

The ex-American agent glanced back at Wesker, waiting for him to continue.

"If you ever keep me in the dark about anything like this again..." he trailed off, leaving the threat open so Krauser could interpret it any way he chose to.

"It won't happen again." Krauser told Wesker and walked away.

Once Krauser's footsteps faded into the distance, Wesker turned to face the storage room door. With a solid kick, the door flew off its hinges and hit the opposite wall. He entered the room a bit eager to find the one who had managed to survive Krauser's torture without giving up any information. In the corner farthest from the door lay a man with his back to Wesker. The man was completely naked with his hands bound in front of him and his entire body was marred with dozens of cuts and bruises, definitely Krauser's work.

Upon hearing Wesker's footsteps, the man slowly dragged himself into the corner. He pressed himself against the wall, his face still hidden in the shadows. He seemed to be attempting to stay as far from the owner of the footsteps as possible. Wesker stopped beside the cowering form and reached a hand down to turn the face towards him. He paused when the man flinched away from his touch.

"Please...don't. Don't hurt me anymore..." the man whimpered.

So it seemed Krauser had succeeded in breaking the man after all. A shame the soldier never got to see his work pay off. But wait...that voice. The prisoner's voice sounded far too familiar. Wesker gripped the man gently by the chin and turned his face into the light. Wesker was shocked when he saw the identity of the prisoner.

"Chris?"

Chris's face was as bruised and bloody as the rest of his body. Both of his eyes were black and blue and one of the eyes was swollen shut. His lip was cut and bleeding in several places and his one usable eye was bloodshot. For some reason, seeing Chris like this didn't make him feel good. Wesker had always thought he wanted to see his nemesis bloodied and broken on the floor like this. But now that he was, the tyrant felt quite different.

"No..." Chris moaned in terror when he saw Wesker.

The beaten man lifted his bound hands and pushed Wesker's hand away from him, trying to crawl to the other corner of the room. Chris moved slowly and it was clear he was very weak and exhausted. That was when Wesker noticed something else. The BSAA agent had blood trailing down the inside of his thighs. Instant rage tore through him at the thought of Krauser touching Chris in such a way. He bent down and grabbed hold of Chris's shoulders, placing him onto his feet. At the touch, Chris whimpered again and tried to get away. The younger man kept his head down and refused to meet Wesker's eyes.

"Chris, I'm not trying to hurt you!" Wesker exclaimed with frustration. "I'm trying to help you."

Chris went still at those words, his head still lowered and his eyes still rooted to the ground. Slowly, the brunette lifted his head and with his one good eye he stared at Wesker.

"Why?"

Wesker paused at Chris's question. Why? Why what? Why was he helping Chris? He didn't know the answer to that question himself. He just knew he didn't want to see Chris like this. Wesker admired the strong, defiant Chris Redfield who never abandoned his beliefs or gave up hope. Chris was definitely someone who didn't deserve to have such horrible things done to him but they had been done to him anyways. Clearly no one was looking out for Chris, so Wesker would just have to be the one to do it. The tyrant had no idea where this was all coming from but he felt it best to follow these instincts of his.

"Because this wasn't supposed to happen." Wesker finally said to Chris.

Chris started to say something but then he started frowning. His eye rolled back in his head and he fainted. Before the brunette could hit the floor, Wesker swiftly caught him. He untied Chris's wrist bindings and then removed his own jacket to wrap around Chris's naked form. Lifting Chris into his arms, the tyrant carried him out of the storage room to take him somewhere to rest.


	2. Compulsory Healing

_**Compulsory Healing**_

When Chris woke up, he was confused to find himself lying on a soft mattress instead of hard concrete floor. But it didn't take long for him to remember what had happened. Wesker had shown up and claimed he was there to help him. Chris must have passed out soon after that because he couldn't remember much else. He took in the fact that he was still naked but someone had washed him. His body was no longer covered in blood and dirt. His eye also felt considerably less swollen. Blinking a few times, he discovered both of his eyes were at least able to open and close. The brunette wondered how long he had been asleep. He didn't know but he did realize he was drifting off again and he welcomed the much needed rest. It was easier for him to close his eyes when he knew there wasn't going to be the possibility of Krauser being there when he woke up.

"_Shh, shh. Don't cry. I'll be more gentle this time," came the hot whisper against his cheek. _

"_No...please. Not again, please..." Chris begged helplessly, knowing the man was lying. He was always rough._

_But it was no use. Krauser's weight pinned him to the floor and with his hands bound, he had no way to defend himself or prevent what was to come. Then Krauser was forcing himself inside of Chris's already bruised and torn entrance. Chris had long ago lost count of how many times the bigger man had raped him, but each time it left him feeling emptier and emptier inside. Why wouldn't the man just put him out of his misery? Why couldn't Krauser just let him die? Chris knew the answer but he didn't want to. He could tell when a man enjoyed inflicting pain and when a man just did it out of necessity. Krauser was without a doubt the former kind of person. Krauser roughly thrust again and again and Chris bit his lip to keep from screaming. Tears streamed freely down his cheeks and finally he couldn't keep it in any longer, the burning pain was just too much for him. He let out a scream of pain and anguish which produced a chuckle from his tormentor._

"_That's what I like to hear. That's it, pretty boy. Come on, give me another scream." _

Chris jolted upright from his restless sleep with a sharp intake of breath. His eyes were wide and frightened as he searched for his attacker, only to realize it had been a dream and he was all alone. No, that wasn't quite right. Wesker was standing in the doorway of the room watching him. He must have just walked in because the door slid shut behind him electronically as he came further into the room.

"A nightmare?" Wesker asked him in his usual cold voice.

Chris chose not to answer him. Instead he focused on calming his racing heartbeat and relaxing his breath. He closed his eyes but tiredly opened them when Wesker spoke again. "Chris?"

"A memory." Chris finally answered the tyrant, who now stood beside the bed which Chris was sitting upright in.

The brunette found he was still unable to bring his eyes to meet the older man's, even when Wesker removed his sunglasses and knelt beside the bed.

"The things that were done to you..." Wesker started.

"I don't want to talk about it." Chris snapped harshly.

Talking about the hell he had been put through the last two weeks was the last thing he wanted to do. Being in the same room as Wesker was the last thing he wanted. But Wesker was here and no one else was. His former captain had been the one to save him when Chris had nearly given up all hope. This fact was messing him up inside. His emotions were in constant turmoil now and he didn't like it. And because his emotions were in constant flux, most of the time he felt nothing. Chris just wanted to know how to feel so he could just feel something but that didn't seem to be happening for him.

"I never would have allowed...such treatment if I had known you had been captured." Wesker informed Chris rather matter-of-factly sounding.

"Don't pretend you care. You hate me, Wesker. I hate you. It's as simple as that. So don't pretend you're sorry for what happened to me. Why are you even bothering to care? Kill me and put me out of my misery. I know you want me dead so go on and finish me." Chris bluntly said to the black-clad man, still averting his gaze.

"I wouldn't have saved you if I wanted you dead."

Chris didn't know why he did it, but he just wanted to feel something. He didn't want this emptiness and if somehow maybe Wesker could make him feel some sort of emotion then he could feel better, start getting past what had been done to him. Completely out of his norm, Chris leaned towards Wesker and planted a light kiss on the tyrant's lips. Wesker's eyes widened in surprise and he pulled back, effectively breaking the kiss.

"Please...I need to feel something." Chris pleaded vulnerably.

Wesker transformed his look back to the usual unreadable expression. "You're just confused, Chris. What happened to you was traumatic and-"

"Ugh! This isn't about then! This is the here and now! I don't need you to tell me what I am, I need you to make me whole again!" Chris yelled in frustration but then his voice got quieter. "Forget it okay? Just go away."

Tears began to leak from the brunette's eyes as he screamed at Wesker for no good reason. Chris rolled onto his side, facing away from Wesker so he wouldn't have to look at the tyrant. Chris was angry because of what had been done to him. What he had let happen to himself and he didn't want to face it. He was so messed up that he couldn't think about anything. There was only one thing that he was sure about right now. Chris wanted Wesker to help him think straight and if he couldn't do that then Chris wanted to stop thinking completely. After a few moments of silence, Chris heard the bed creak as weight was added to it and he felt Wesker lay down beside him. The blonde man wrapped his arms around Chris and placed his head against the BSAA agent's smooth back. Chris relaxed into Wesker's embrace and tried to fall back asleep but he just couldn't. Chris reversed his direction so he faced Wesker and tried to kiss him again. This time Wesker let him and started kissing him back. The brunette melted into the other man and they wrapped around each other as they meshed lips. Desperate for more contact, Chris moaned needily and tugged at Wesker's shirt, trying to remove it. Breathing heavily, the blonde broke the kiss and stared at the younger man.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Wesker asked.

"Don't stop." Chris breathed and initiated another kiss.

As they continued to make out, Wesker worked on removing his own clothing. Once all of his clothes were off, Chris pressed his naked body against Wesker's nude form, consumed by lust. The blonde tyrant was shocked by Chris's forwardness as the brunette hungrily nibbled and kissed Wesker's neck and chest but was by no means put off by it. The constant touching and feeling as they tasted each other's bodies, continued for several minutes. As Chris continued to push his groin into Wesker's own, the tyrant grew even further aroused and moved to take this to the next level. Quickly dominating the kiss, Wesker rolled on top of the brunette and let his hands trail down to Chris's hips. The younger man spread his thighs eagerly, wrapping his legs around Wesker's waist and staring up at him pleadingly. Wesker positioned himself in front of Chris's entrance and placed the tip of his erection against the tight hole.

"Fuck me." Chris told him.

Only too glad to comply, Wesker shoved inside of the BSAA agent and received a grunt of pain. He continued to push his manhood deep until he was buried to the hilt inside of Chris. Chris's face was contorted in pain, unable to handle the man's impressive girth and the tyrant hesitated.

"We don't have to do this." Wesker said, meeting Chris's eyes.

"I want to." the man beneath him insisted.

As if to prove his point, Chris ran his hands through Wesker's hair and delved his tongue into the blonde's mouth. The older man accepted his answer and gave Chris a few moments to adjust to his size before he began to thrust repeatedly into the thick heat. Chris's pained expression became mixed as his eyes filled with bliss and he moaned the other man's name again and again. Wesker pushed the brunette down against the sheets as they roughly kissed and one hand groped Chris's chest while the other lingered lower. He gripped Chris's manhood, forming a sort of funnel with his fist and moved his hand up and down along the length. The tyrant moved into a rhythm, sliding his hand up and down the brunette's shaft as he thrust in and out of Chris. After this went on for awhile, Chris couldn't hold out anymore and he came with a scream of pure ecstasy, his semen spilling onto them both. A few more thrusts into the delicious heat and Wesker followed soon after, his seed filling Chris's hole. He collapsed on top of Chris, his head against the brunette's chest, resting. After a moment, he pulled out of the younger man and rolled onto his back to lay beside Chris. Soaked with sweat and semen, Chris shifted his body to snuggle against Wesker. He buried his face into the tyrant's neck, his eyes growing heavy with tiredness and after awhile Chris allowed himself to drift into sleep.

"_Why are you doing this?" Chris whimpered as he lay helplessly beneath the larger man._

"_You'll have to be more specific, pretty boy." Krauser muttered, digging his nails into the flesh of Chris's back._

"_I know who you are."_

"_Is that so?" Krauser asked, thrusting particularly hard._

_Chris gasped out in pain and clenched his jaw. He struggled to hold in the scream he so badly wanted to release, knowing it would only spur the other man on. Desperate to find some way to endure the burning pain, Chris tried to keep his tormentor talking. _

"_You're working for a man named Albert Wesker, aren't you?" _

"_I thought this was my interrogation. I want to talk about you, not me." _

_On the word, 'me', Krauser pulled his manhood out except for the head of his member and thrust it back into Chris. The motion felt to Chris like he had been impaled with a knife and a shout of agony escaped him, bringing a smile to the muscular man's lips. _

"_Much better." Krauser murmured and forced his mouth against Chris' own._

_Chris tried to turn his head away but a strong hand gripped his chin and a tongue moved between his lips. The brunette struggled to break the kiss which only caused Krauser to kiss him more violently. Only after the necessity to breathe reached the blonde soldier did he release Chris's mouth. The brunette greedily gulped in air and another push of Krauser's manhood inside of him finally caused the soldier to reach climax, filling his seed into his captive. Chris grimaced in disgust as the wet fluid filled him. He tried to take his mind off of it._

"_I was told you were a good man, a good soldier, once. So why do you work for someone like Wesker? He only seeks to accomplish his own selfish goals." Chris asked._

_Krauser remained inside of Chris, most likely because he knew how much it sickened the other man and considered the brunette's words. Chris's heartbeat quickened when Krauser reached for his knife and started playing with it, running it lightly along his captive's skin. _

"_We happen to share common interests, he and I."_

"_And those would be?" Chris questioned skeptically._

_The brunette found it hard to believe Wesker could actually have someone that wanted the same insane things as he did. Chris had always assumed the inhuman tyrant was his own unique brand of evil. Apparently there were others just like him that actually agreed with his ideals and beliefs, Chris soon learned._

"_To bring order and balance to this insane world of ours." _

_Chris stared incredulously at the other man. "And you're going to unleash Uroboros into the world to do that?"_

"_Not exactly. Those plans have failed." Krauser grinned as he traced the knife along Chris' s throat. "But I suspected that would be the case from the very beginning. Don't worry though. I think Wesker is on to something special. Something that could bring order and balance. Now enough about that. Tell me, does this hurt?"_

_Krauser sank the blade of the knife deep into the skin of Chris' s shoulder and the brunette cried out in pain. The soldier chuckled to himself. _

"_Haha...you're just too much fun." _


	3. Returning Animosity

_**Returning Animosity**_

Excella Gionne was doing little to hide her impatience at waiting for Albert Wesker's return and the vulgar American soldier wasn't helping matters. He was leaning against a nearby wall in the hangar, interminably tossing his combat knife and catching it as always. The repetitive action proving to wear on the Italian woman's nerves. Excella gave Krauser a sharp glance, narrowing her eyes in warning for him to cut it out. The man noticed her look and grinned before continuing his habitual motion. The noble female sniffed indignantly and sat down on the lone metal chair available. She crossed her legs elegantly and scrutinized the American. She didn't understand why Albert would work with such an inferior ally such as Jack Krauser. The man was nothing more than a hired gun who lived to fight and had nothing more to offer. Excella herself was invaluable to Albert as she had access to Tricell resources and far greater intelligence to contribute to their cause. As if reading her thoughts, Krauser looked appraisingly at her in return.

"I have more value than one might think, rich girl."

Excella's face scrunched up with distaste for the label he'd created for her. She met his eyes, growing increasingly annoyed as Krauser added, "At least I'm not merely a pretty face along for the ride."

She blinked. _Merely a pretty face..._ Her cheeks flushed with heat and she huffed angrily. "I am far more essential to Albert than you will ever be!"

"Sure honey, keep telling yourself that." Krauser retorted with a shrug.

Normally Excella would never let such trivial words bother her. But with her anxiety rising at Albert's prolonged absence, it was getting to the noble woman. She preferred to be aware of his whereabouts and business at all times. Well actually, Excella would much rather be by Albert's side all of the time but the tyrant seemed to like his privacy much more than he liked spending time with her. She tried to ignore that he clearly had no romantic interest in her as she did with him but the more bluntly he continued to use her, the harder it became to pretend. Angered as she thought of how Albert treated her and having only Krauser to act out her frustrations on, she glared at him. Before Excella had a chance to express her disapproval for his assumptions, a smooth and confident female voice spoke out.

"Gee Krauser, you really know how to sweep the ladies off their feet."

A woman wearing a deep red dress that ended just past her hips came walking into the hangar. She wore dark stockings over long legs, fingerless black gloves, and matching red heels. Over her dress she wore a black melee vest and a weapon belt equipped with a handgun, extra ammo, and a knife. The Chinese-American had short stylish black hair and carefully applied make up. A beautiful assassin and one who seemed to pride herself on remaining mysterious to those she met or worked with.

Krauser tilted his head in the direction of the woman's entrance into the building. "Hmph, if it isn't the bitch in the red dress."

Ada Wong smiled falsely at the broad shouldered man. "What's the matter, Krauser? Still feeling sore about our last encounter?"

Krauser sneered. "I knew you were up to no good and I was right. You double-crossed Wesker as expected. I don't understand why he's allowing you to work for him again."

Ada crossed her arms against her chest, continuing to smile calmly at Krauser. "As I told you before, I knew Wesker long before you did."

Krauser narrowed his eyes. "That's not an answer."

"You should know better, Krauser. It's the best you're going to get from me. A girl's gotta have her secrets." Ada replied cunningly.

The soldier scoffed. "Secrets are all you seem to have."

"Seems that way." Ada said slyly.

Excella watched this interaction and released a furtive sigh of irritation. She didn't want to sit here and listen to these two converse hostilely. Once again she found herself glancing towards the entrance to the hangar where Ada had entered, checking to see if Albert had arrived yet for what must have been the hundredth time. Sure enough, his black-clad form came striding purposefully through the doorway and she sprang up from her seat. Excella bent to retrieve the metal suitcase placed beside the chair and set it onto the seat before opening the case. She removed a syringe containing the tyrant's serum, knowing the shot was what Albert had come for.

Ada and Krauser grew quiet and turned their attention onto their boss as he came over to Excella. Albert extended his forearm out, awaiting his injection. He wasn't wearing his long jacket so his sleeves were already rolled up to the elbows. Excella removed the cap and tapped the top of the needle, proceeding to inject the serum into a vein in his arm. She placed the empty syringe back into the case delicately and shifted her gaze to the blonde tyrant.

"What kept you?" the Italian asked him.

Albert lowered his arm to his side before taking in her unhappy stare and pouty posture. "I had other matters to attend to. How are preparations on this end?"

"The BSAA destroyed what was left of Uroboros with the aid of Jill Valentine. It seems your experiment wasn't quite as successful as you hoped." Excella informed him.

"There is nothing wrong with the chemical itself. We only need a better way to administer P30 to the subject." Albert told her.

"So you wish to continue experimenting with the chemical..very well. The plane is prepared to leave whenever you are ready. The BSAA teams will find this hangar eventually so I suggest we depart in a timely manner." Excella continued, finishing her update for Albert.

Albert nodded. "Good." He turned his gaze towards Ada, shifting the dark shades he wore as he did. "Did you complete your objectives?"

Ada uncrossed her arms and smiled easily. "Of course. Samples of both P30 and Las Plagas so you may continue your work without delay."

The woman in the red reached for a small case attached to the back of her belt and walked over to hand it to Albert. Excella frowned, she hadn't been aware Albert had sent the female agent on any missions. She was typically kept informed so this discovery didn't sit well with her. She watched Albert accept the case through narrowed eyes but brightened considerably when he passed them over to her.

"Keep these safe." Albert ordered and Excella eagerly accepted them into her care.

"I have someone to retrieve and then we will leave for our backup facility." Albert established. "He is not to be harmed in any way unless I command it, is that understood?"

Excella noted he was staring pointedly at Krauser as he asked for their confirmation of his orders and she wondered who this someone was. More and more she found herself being left out of the loop and this struck her as very bad news for herself. _No, he needs me. Or at least Tricell. My position at his side is secure._ She convinced herself, feeling a little better. Peering back and forth between Albert and Krauser as they locked eyes, she could tell the latter didn't understand. Apparently Albert was determined to make him understand. The tyrant moved with astonishing speed and was in front of Krauser almost as if he had teleported there. He grabbed the muscular man up by the neck as if he were as light as a twig and shoved him against the wall. Surprise illuminated Krauser's features, and discomfort as his oxygen supply was cut off.

"What you did to him goes beyond acceptable, Krauser. When you are working for me I do not tolerate such insubordination. Now I said he is not to be harmed in any way, do you understand?" Albert asked him, red eyes glowing from behind his sunglasses.

Anger flashed when he realized who Albert was referring to but Excella was left completely in the dark. Krauser could not speak because of the amount of pressure the tyrant was applying to his throat and after a moment Albert eased up and he choked out his understanding. Satisfied, Albert released him and Krauser dropped to the floor. Quickly leaping back onto his feet, he rubbed his sore neck and glared at the other blonde.

"You know him or something?" Krauser asked when he had collected enough air into his lungs to speak.

Excella thought Albert might strike out at the other man again but instead he seemed to be quite calm. He glanced towards Krauser. "That's right. You happened to interfere with my very nemesis. He was to be mine to deal with as I saw fit. I will have to find new plans for him now. Remember your place, Krauser."

With those words, Albert strode to the doors and left without another glance back at them. Krauser made a grunt of discontentment but Excella could tell he would listen. No one disobeyed an order from the tyrant when he gave it in person and face to face. At least, Excella had never seen anyone foolish enough to do such a thing. She knew Ada had been at odds with Wesker at one time but the two had seemingly worked out some sort of agreement once again. Excella didn't like it but she knew enough to keep from voicing her disagreements out loud if she wanted to remain in Albert's favor. As long as he remained with the promise of allowing her power, Excella would go along with Albert and his plans.

"Maybe you should have used your arm on him." Ada suggested condescendingly, referring to his arm that was capable of mutating into a claw.

Krauser fixed her with an infuriated glare and she simply gave him that small smile of hers. Excella and her both knew that the blonde soldier was powerful because of the virus inside him, but certainly no match for Albert. Excella figured they wouldn't have to worry about him revolting for leadership. Krauser may have been a brute dog, but he was an obedient and loyal dog.

Chris woke to find he was alone. On a table beside the bed a tray of food sat out for him. His stomach rumbled noisily at the sight. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until looking at the food brought it to the forefront of his mind. He eagerly ate until every last bit was consumed and drank the bottled water to wash down the food. Chris had barely finished his meal when the sound of the electronic door caught his attention and Wesker came walking in. The blonde strode over to retrieve his coat which was draped over the back of a wooden chair and put it on before regarding the man sitting in the bed. Determined to try and erase what had happened between the two of them in the very bed he sat upright in, Chris spoke first.

"This changes nothing, Wesker."

A smile played across the blonde's lips. "I'm glad you see it that way. I feel the same."

"Good, cause I still hate you and will do whatever it takes to stop you and your plans."

"Well I'm sure you will be pleased to hear your new partner worked with Jill and destroyed Uroboros. Not even a trace remains and you can imagine how upset that makes me." Wesker said to him.

Chris seemed relieved. "So Krauser was telling the truth. Your plans for Uroboros failed."

Wesker cocked an eyebrow with interest. "You know Krauser?"

Chris nodded. "That's right. I recognized him from the photos provided in the Kennedy report. He used to be a government agent until his presumed death where he apparently went to work for you. Krauser wanted to revive Umbrella in hopes of bringing order to the world. I thought he was dead like everyone else but the guy seems to have the habit of coming back from the dead just like you. He's also as delusional as you."

Wesker smirked. "Glad you think so highly of me."

"I hate you."

"You said that."

"Can't hurt to remind you."

Silence permeated the room which also happened to still smell like sweat and sex from their previous encounter the other night. A smell that seemed to tell the opposite of how they felt for each other, and it was beginning to make Chris feel sick. It came as a relief then, when Wesker produced Chris's clothing that Krauser had taken away. The clothes seemed to have been laundered recently and grateful to be wearing clothes again, he dressed quickly without bothering to cover himself from Wesker. Why bother when the other man had already seen it all. Another wave of nausea swept through the BSAA agent at the thought of sleeping with his greatest enemy but he ignored it.

"How long have I been here?" he asked the blonde tyrant.

"Four days, and you've healed considerably since when I first found you. Your face has completely healed and your cuts as well, though those wounds will undoubtedly leave scars."

"Yeah, I kinda figured." Chris murmured.

It hadn't escaped his attention that his body was now decorated with small and large scars. Some of them would possibly heal completely but he knew most would be there permanently. A permanent reminder of his time imprisoned by Krauser. Chris could feel Wesker's eyes boring into him and he turned to face the older man.

"Uroboros is the past. We're leaving Africa." Wesker told him.

"Good for you."

"You're aware you are part of 'we', right?"

"What? Why would I ever go anywhere with you?" Chris demanded.

"You lost me one of my test subjects so now you will take Jill's place."

"Hell no. I'd rather be dead." Chris heatedly informed him.

"That could be arranged." Wesker hissed but almost immediately retained his calm. "I apologize if I made it seem as though you had a choice in the matter but you are going to be my captive. Now there are two options you _can _choose from. You can accompany me to the hangar willingly and walk on your own, or I will carry you there myself."

Chris scoffed. "You wouldn't dare."

The look on Wesker's face told the brunette otherwise.


	4. Meeting the Team

**Author's Note:** Sorry its been so long since I last updated this. The story started out as a oneshot and then became a twoshot and then well...continued as a story. More will be coming but it might take me awhile.

_**Meeting..The Team?**_

"I can't believe you made me carry you the entire way." Wesker complained as he dropped Chris to the ground none to gently.

"Suck it up, Wesker. What else are you gonna use that super strength for?"Chris retorted from the ground.

The BSAA member's face was a bright shade of red from the embarrassment of actually being carried by the blonde tyrant but he also felt satisfaction in not making it easy on Wesker. If Chris was going to lose his freedom and be forced to become Wesker's newest puppet in his endless games, then he was at least going to give the tyrant hell while he was at it. The brunette climbed to his feet and brushed off dirt from his pants. Glancing around, he observed the two of them were now standing next to an aircraft hangar. Another thought seemed to have occurred to him.

"So..uh, um..."

"Spit it out Redfield, I don't have all day."

Normally this would have incited anger in the brunette but at the moment he wasn't feeling like getting angry. Not with what he was thinking about. Chris was remembering those weeks of torment he had endured at the hands of a certain soldier and he had just put together that his tormentor worked for Wesker which meant...

"Is he going to be in there?" Chris asked quietly, staring at the ground.

Wesker knew exactly who he meant and his look of annoyance vanished and once again became expressionless. "Yes." he answered simply.

The brunette swallowed nervously but then he straightened his posture and hardened his expression to its normal tough exterior. "Lets get this over with."

The blonde tyrant regarded the BSAA member for a moment before he nodded and led the way into the large hangar where the others were awaiting him.

Chris followed Wesker into the building and peered around with slight interest as he was seeing the place for the very first time. Feeling several pairs of eyes on him he lowered his gaze onto the people inhabiting the area. Surprisingly Chris recognized all three of them. The one standing impatiently near a metal chair tapping her foot repeatedly was the CEO of Tricell, Excella Gionne. The wealthy woman was still wearing that incredibly over-revealing dress of hers and he couldn't understand how anyone could manage to walk around in something that tight.

"Seriously Excella, how the hell do you move wearing that thing?" Chris blurted out loud without meaning to.

The woman froze in her tapping and placed her hands on her hips, glaring at the BSAA member. "How dare you!" she screeched, her voice rising in anger.

Krauser chuckled softly and Excella spun around to face the muscular soldier. "And just what are you laughing at? There is nothing wrong with what I am wearing!" She reversed her position to stare at Chris once again. "Besides, I'm beautiful and can't help it if men like you choose to stare at me."

"Hey I'm not about to complain. I get a free peep show every day." Krauser commented with a laugh.

The infuriated glare Excella cast at the scarred man...well basically if looks could kill, Krauser would be a very dead man.

The third and final individual in the room was also someone Chris recognized. Leon Kennedy had told Chris about her being there during the events of Raccoon City and she'd been there in Europe when Leon was sent in to find the President's missing daughter. Her name was Ada Wong and she seemed to have her hand in darker things than what Chris figured Leon realized. Here she was, working for Wesker. Again. The short-haired woman quietly observed his entrance and the exchange between Krauser and Excella before deciding to approach the brunette. Chris wasn't the only one stunned when the woman in the red dress extended her hand towards him.

"Chris? Chris Redfield, right? It is truly a pleasure to finally meet you." Ada said to him with a soft smile.

He looked at her in surprise but hesitantly shook her hand in greeting. The BSAA soldier couldn't understand what she was up to. What was she doing pretending to be friendly with him? Unless..she wasn't pretending. Leon had told Chris he could never quite figure the woman out because of how sometimes she would save his life, while successfully ensuring her mission was getting completed.

He didn't know what to think so he decided to be cautious over eagerness at finding a possible ally. "Uh, right. Pleasure meeting you while being held captive. This is definitely the highlight of my entire week."

Excella sniffed, obviously unclear as to what Chris was doing there, especially alive. Krauser's lips upturned in a half smile at his sarcasm, Wesker remained expressionless as usual, and Ada took his retort in stride.

"Yes, well, you _are_ alive. Alive to fight another day." She released his hand and placed her hand to her hip. "I'm serious when I say it is an honor to meet such an infamous soldier. My name is-"

"Ada. Ada Wong. I know." Chris interrupted. "Leon's told me about you. Says you shouldn't be trusted. Your priorities are yourself and your mission. Whichever mission is your real one anyway."

It was difficult to gauge Ada's reaction to his words as she kept a fairly straight face. But for half a second, Chris could of sworn he'd seen hurt flicker briefly in her eyes. Then the moment was gone and she was smiling gently at him again.

"It's good that you know me. Then we've already been acquainted."

Chris stared at her. Had he imagined things or was she trying to get a message through to him with those words. There was no way he could know for sure and then she was walking away. The brunette glanced at Wesker and that was when he saw them out of the large overhead window. To a stranger of battles and weaponry, the multiple spots of orange light in the sky would have appeared to be just that. To a veteran like Chris though, he knew they were missiles likely fired from the cannons of several combat choppers.

"Uh..Wesker..." Chris started.

Wesker glanced over his shoulder and then was already moving. A black blur yanking Chris by the arm and dragging him in the direction of the plane which the other three were hurrying onto at the same time. The missiles reached the aircraft hanger and slammed through the roof, battering down into the concrete ground with the force of a speeding train. All five of them were thrown off their feet simultaneously. Wesker was the first up and Chris saw him run into the plane, turning on the engine and preparing it for take off. Krauser was shoving Excella into the plane before she got herself killed by simply sitting on the ground as she had been and Ada was shouting something at Chris from where she crouched near the back of the plane. All Chris could hear was the ringing in his ears from a missile exploding so close to him.

Her shouting vaguely turned into fragments of sentences. _Chris. Look. Run._ Those were the only words he could manage to snag from her yelling. Ada was repeating the word look the most often and so he peered around in front of him. There was nothing special to find so he proceeded to peer over his shoulder and his heart stopped. Three hunters were closing the distance between him through the wide open fourth wall where the plane would make its exit, and one of them paused to leap.

His first reaction was to be frozen in shock but he shook the fear away before it could paralyze him and instead threw himself as hard as he could sideways. The hunter landed directly on the spot he'd been laying moments before, a giant tear in the hard floor where the monster had swept its claw. If he hadn't been able to move, that tear would have been his entire backside split apart.

The hunter was turning its beady black eyes towards Chris. He ran for it, towards the front of the plane. He was almost within touching distance of the aircraft when a fourth hunter appeared from around the nose of the craft. Chris had been running full speed and now being forced to try and turn, he started to slip on the ground as he twisted. He slid and fell onto his side and this slip up saved his life. The hunter chasing from behind had chosen to leap at the same moment and because of this, the momentum from its jump sent it crashing into the hunter in front of Chris, instead of onto Chris himself.

The brunette scrambled to his feet and raced to board the plane, Ada staring wide-eyed in his direction as he made his desperate flee to safety. A glance over his shoulder told him why and made him wish he hadn't looked in the first place. The other two hunters were nearly upon him and he had no hope of outrunning them. The woman in red had her gun out but she couldn't fire without the risk of hitting Chris as well. As a soldier, Chris knew when he was dead. He stopped in his tracks and stared as one of the hunters passed the other and raised up a claw to swipe at him. He clenched his jaw and hardened his gaze, waiting for death to claim him.

But then Krauser suddenly appeared in front of him and quite literally punched the hunter in the head as though it were a mere nuisance. The creature squealed and stumbled back into the other one leaving them both vulnerable for attack which Krauser used by twisting his body to sidekick the same hunter. The blow sent both monsters flying backwards several yards and Chris stared as this took place both impressed and stunned.

Krauser turned back and grabbed him roughly by the back of the neck, shoving him towards the open side door of the plane where Ada was standing.

"Move it, pretty boy. Or that skin won't be on you much longer."

Chris didn't have to be told twice. He ignored the flinch he'd automatically done when his torturer had touched the back of his neck and ran with as much speed as he could muster. He climbed up onto the plane, Krauser, close behind, and Ada immediately moved to close the door. As soon as they were all inside, he could feel the plane visibly tremble as it started to move, heading out the open wall and out of the hanger.

"I thought Wesker could control those things." Chris gasped out when he'd gulped enough oxygen for him to be able to speak. "Why the hell are they attacking us?"

Ada regarded him with a very serious expression but didn't answer him. Chris doubted she knew the answer either. He reluctantly turned to Krauser in hopes of an answer but then Excella spoke.

"Perhaps Wesker is not the only one who can control them. Is he the only one of his kind?"

Twice in such a short period, Chris felt like his heart had stopped. When he'd been inside the Spencer Estate he had found documents. There had been a list with thirteen names. A list of the surviving Wesker Children.

The plane took off into the air with no more incident but Chris didn't feel anywhere near safe. There were twelve possibilities as to who had attacked them if it was one of the survivors of the Wesker Project. Chris had a sinking feeling that it would be just his luck that he would be meeting another evil bastard like Wesker. Because apparently, one person like Wesker wasn't enough.


	5. Deception Breeds Ignorance

**Author's note: **Since I seem to take forever with each update, I'm going to do something I don't usually do with my stories. If anyone has any ideas of what they might like to hear or see in this story. Let me know and I'll see if I can make it happen. =)

_**Deception Breeds Ignorance**_

_Expensive._ That was the first word that came to his mind as he stared up at the tall Tricell building before him. Chris couldn't believe Excella Gionne would receive no repercussions for her massive failure of any productivity or valuable use of Tricell funding while in charge of the African division. Instead it was as though nothing had ever happened as she was greeted like a VIP guest and ushered along the cold and uninviting hallways of the pharmaceutical corporation's building in Paris. Chris trailed behind her with Ada Wong.

The employee who'd welcomed the CEO of Tricell's African branch at the entrance, had barely registered the presence of him or Ada. Chris suspected it was either because they were nobodies in this building, or it was simply because Excella bore the looks and dress of a fashion model and like any man with raging hormones, he didn't want to take his eyes off of her.

The brunette couldn't understand this desire to ogle Excella's..assets. Of course, that could easily be explained by her attempts to murder Chris on several occasions or the obvious disdain she held for the BSAA agent. Even if everything that happened in Africa hadn't happened, he would have been able to see through her facade immediately. The tall, pretty woman used her appearance to get what she wanted and used her respected lineage to have whatever her heart desired as well. Chris suspected the woman tended to use these things to get what her pocket desired rather than her heart, if it could even be said, that she had one.

"Wait in here. I have things that need attending to." Excella informed them, her nose stuck up in the air as usual.

For a brief moment he pondered about how easy it would be to wipe the superior mentality she held, right out of existence. All he had to do was sock her in the mouth and point out his capability of ending her life right then and there. Chris would never murder someone outright and avoided killing even enemies when he could, because the job called for him to make arrests and gather information. But Excella wasn't likely privy to such information and the look of fear she'd hold in those eyes wouldn't leave his mind anytime soon. But he didn't do any sort of violent act. He didn't do those things. No, he seemed to have those things done to him quite often though. The soldier was continuously beaten down again and again but he kept going. Why? Because it was his job and because he had to. If he didn't keep himself fighting and keep himself moving forward, what else was there?

Instead of beating the smug expression off Excella's face like _his_ heart desired, he moved into the office she wanted them to wait in and took a seat on a comfy looking sofa. Ada followed his lead and sat at the other end of the sofa, appearing completely at ease. Chris was no fool, he knew this was what she wanted people around her to think. If everyone thought the woman in red appeared relaxed and off-guard, they would be the ones taken off-guard when she suddenly would become alert and fully capable of taking care of herself. He watched Excella's retreating form moving down the hall with the male employee who was currently lingering slightly behind the high-heel wearing woman, in order to get a better view of her backside. He had to smile at that but only on the inside. He couldn't seem to get himself to feel emotions enough for them to appear on the outside, except for fear and anger. Those emotions would appear quite readily on the surface. He leaned back against the cushions and rested his head back on the soft fabric, closing his eyes as he did so.

"You okay?" he heard Ada ask him and felt her watchful eyes on his face.

"What do you think?"

"That's not an answer."

"Neither was yours."

"I'm sorry you're in this situation."

"Are you really?"

"Of course. You don't believe me?"

"Give me a reason to."

Silence reigned for a good minute before Ada finally responded.

"If I thought you would be safer somewhere else, I'd help you escape."

Okay, Chris had to admit, that response had been unexpected and he wasn't sure what to make of it. He opened his eyes and raised his head to meet Ada's intense gaze.

"I'm lost. You think I'm safer here as a captive rather than free and working for the BSAA?"

"Yes."

When she didn't elaborate, Chris tried to help her along. "And..you believe this..because...?"

"Because I know you," she said to him, "you're a lot like Leon."

"Leon? Leon Kennedy? I'm like him, huh?"

"Yes, you are. A man who won't give up no matter how bleak the situation. You're going to run off and get yourself killed if you keep doing things the way you do."

"Oh? And how's that?" Chris asked her, frowning at the insinuation that he wasn't capable of taking care of himself.

"Wesker."

He'd been preparing himself for an argument until she'd lost him by stating a name out of the blue. A mention of Wesker to be precise. Chris sat forward and stared hard at the woman across from him at the other end of the sofa.

"Excuse me?"

"You can't kill him, Chris. And certainly not by yourself. He's going to be the death of you. You've got to stop fighting and start learning. The things that man knows can keep you alive and in good health too."

"He's not a man. Not anymore."

"You know what I mean and you are well aware of how evil other people can be too."

When she'd said that she was busy staring at his still very bruised and cut up face. The swelling on his eye had gone down so that he was able to open it but there remained plenty of bruising around it so it didn't look a whole lot better. Chris bore the weight of what Ada had originally been trying to ask him before when she'd asked if he was okay. The female spy had wanted to know if mentally he was the same or at least could be one day. He pretended he hadn't uncovered that genuine concern from the woman seated near him and instead returned to where their conversation had taken them. Albert _fuckin'_ Wesker.

"That..freak..is a reject of Umbrella's and he deserves to die." Chris informed Ada through clenched teeth.

"He's not the only one you know."

The information he'd read about in Spencer's office at his estate rang through his head again. The Wesker Project. Thirteen survivors including Albert Wesker. There were most likely twelve others out there with abilities identical to the blonde tyrant he knew. Maybe he'd get lucky and they'd have died at the hands of Umbrella? Or maybe they had no desire for complete and total world domination and the evolution of mankind like a certain tyrant he knew? Yeah right..and maybe he could pretend he wasn't sitting in a Tricell facility across from an untrustworthy female agent against his own free will.

"So there are twelve others like you? You simply must be toying with me Albert. How could you not tell me of this?"

Excella Gionne placed her delicate hands on her hips and regarded Wesker with the utmost curiosity and fascination. Albert Wesker had always been an object of her admiration since the day he'd come to her with a proposition for a little project he had in mind to do in Africa. Her interest in the man had only grown as time went on and she believed her position of power was growing because of their mutual interest to claim more. Albert was the same way. He desired power and although he was quite powerful all on his own, he recognized he still had limits. For even a man with superhuman abilities couldn't take on an entire army. Or at least, Excella knew the tyrant wasn't willing to take the risk by attempting to do so.

The Italian woman was in front of a large monitor displaying thirteen images, headshots of all thirteen men and women who were survivors of the Wesker Project. A picture of Albert was on the top row, second down, and aforementioned man was standing right beside her in the flesh. The series of photos were in a total of three rows with names under each. The order went like this: Alex, Albert, Derek, Felicia. Hans, Hiro, Irma, Jonah. Ken, Laura, Marco, Miles, and William.

"Spencer informed me of being the only survivor." Wesker mentioned, to answer Excella's surprised reaction of the photos displayed on the large screen.

"And what? You took that guy at face value?" Krauser questioned with a frown, moving from the doorway to where she and Albert were standing to get a better look at the images of the thirteen.

"I'm merely stating what I was informed of. Whether I believe him or not is irrelevant."

"On the contrary, it's very relevant." Excella pointed out, hating that she was disproving what the blonde had said, to say what she needed to. "Whether you believe Mr. Spencer is a pressing matter since it will determine our next step."

"It needn't determine anything," the tyrant said in reply as he turned away from the monitor and peered down at her over the rims of his dark sunglasses. "Should there happen to be any other project survivors out there, they are not a factor in what I am trying to accomplish."

"What _we_ are trying to accomplish," she corrected him, letting her hands fall loosely off of her hips so she wasn't in her defensive position anymore.

He shifted his stance away from her to give his attention to Krauser and she felt doubt creeping around inside once again. More and more she'd begun to feel this..doubt. Doubt that she was really all that important or even necessary to Albert. That maybe she was only a means to an end for the tyrant. Excella dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. No, no, no. She was needed. And even if that no longer became true, Albert wanted her to be there. He liked her company, right? A quiet voice in the back of her mind told her she was being unreasonable, that a powerful, inhuman figure like Albert Wesker would never need her for anything. But as she always did, she shut the voice out, and smiled coyly at him even though he was speaking with Krauser at the moment. Yeah, Albert needed her. He did. It was true. It had to be.

"Mr. Redfield? Miss Wong?"

Chris and Ada both simultaneously jerked from their respective methods of pretending the other wasn't in the room. This was what they'd been occupying themselves with for the last five minutes, ever since their conversation had ended on a rather displeasing note. The reminder there could possibly be a dozen others like Wesker out there running about in the world doing only God knows what. _Anything from murdering innocents to plotting grand schemes of world domination._ Chris thought bitterly to himself.

"Mr. Redfield?"

The quiet voice said again. Chris tore his eyes away from staring at the ceiling to find a pretty Asian woman perhaps in her late 30's or early 40's standing in the doorway. She wore small framed glasses perched on a small pointed nose and her soft, thin lips were upturned in a polite but uneasy smile. Altogether her entire five foot frame appeared unsettled and he realized she was uncomfortable to be talking to him and Ada. The woman was wearing nice black dress pants and a dark blue blouse. Her dark black hair was pulled back in a short ponytail and a white lab coat down past her knees completed the look.

The brunette realized he'd been staring and he glanced away before looking back at her, standing as he did this.

"Yeah, that's me. And you are?"

"I'm a scientist in the lab here. I've been sent by Miss Gionne to bring yourself and Miss Wong to her."

Ada got to her feet as Chris had as he forced a smile to the newly arrived woman that probably came across as more of a wince than a smile of any kind.

"You got a name or am I just supposed to call you scientist?" Chris asked her.

The woman shook her head apologetically and adjusted her glasses so they were better fixed atop her nose. "Yes, of course. My name is Dr. Chen. Dr. Laura Chen."

She flashed him a genuine smile this time, her eyes lighting up slightly. "But you can just call me Laura."

**Author's Note: **I'll be taking liberties with the descriptions of all Wesker children. I think I read somewhere that there is only one survivor left besides Wesker of the twelve injected with the experimental virus, but, this is my fiction and so all thirteen are alive. ^_^


	6. Number Ten

_**Number Ten**_

He abhorred Seattle. The weather was always gloomy and it had been raining constantly since he'd flown into Washington three days ago. The 6'2'' man stood alone in the room and hadn't bothered to turn on the lights. He preferred the dark. An outsider could probably come to this conclusion on their own because of the color choice of his clothing. He was dressed in combat pants, a tank top, an expensive jacket, steel-tipped boots, and completing the look was a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap that covered his dark brown hair. All of his apparel was the color of black.

Despite his distaste for the city, Lex Mason continued staring out the large window at the rain pounding against the glass. His business was nearly finished here and then he would move on to a much warmer climate. Not that heat or cold mattered much to him, but he just seemed to approve of hotter areas for some reason. Perhaps it was because he found twisted amusement in watching the discomfort of people when they felt stifled by unbearable heat.

Thunder rumbled like a discontented lion and lightning flashed across the sky. Rain was a miserable thing, but a storm, now that he could enjoy. In a few hours, the rain would be inconsequential anyways. There were just a few loose ends to tie up before he could leave the city, and he had yet to hear back from his men in Africa. As though his thoughts had been read, though that was quite the impossibility, a man in a black suit and tie walked into the conference room.

"Sir, the African compound was completely destroyed. All traces of Uroboros has been eradicated."

"Any survivors?" Mason questioned without turning away from the window.

When his question was met with silence, he reluctantly inclined his head in the direction of the suited man.

"Well?"

"A plane was seen taking off a short distance from the main area of the compound. We believe the target was at least on board, if not the one piloting the aircraft."

The man appeared uncomfortable passing this news on to Mason.

"Was the target alone?"

"We can't confirm that, sir," came the nervous reply.

"Very well, anything else?"

The nicely dressed man visibly grew more relaxed at how well the report was received. "Hans Laumont has arrived and is waiting outside."

"He's which one again?" Mason asked, turning around to fully face his employee.

"Number five of the Wesker Project, sir."

"Very good, send him in," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," the suited man answered before exciting the room quickly.

A tall, lanky man with close-shaven, pale white hair and red tinted sunglasses entered the conference room. He wore a tan three-piece suit, clearly expensive, and walked with a kind of swagger. It was clear he was an arrogant type looking down on the rest of the world. Mason allowed a slight smile to creep across his face. For feeling superior to everyone else, this Hans Laumont certainly hadn't realized he'd just been lured in like a fly to the spider's web. All Lex had to do was leave some bread crumbs of his identity and that he was searching for the Wesker children, and Hans had soon after contacted him. It was just too easy.

"Mr. Laumont, a pleasure to meet you." Mason greeted.

He approached the man and extended a hand. The two men shook hands, brief but firm, before pulling back to size one another up.

"You are Mr. Mason, I presume?"

The man spoke with a clear English accent. The amused smile had yet to leave Lex's face and Hans appeared to be growing disturbed by the sight. He was now slightly frowning at the darkly clothed man, a crease forming between his two perfectly groomed eyebrows.

"Do you find something to be humorous, Mr. Mason? Something that escapes me, perhaps?"

"Oh, you have no idea." Mason told him, smile becoming positively shark-like.

He reached into his jacket to retrieve a particular object and stabbed it into Hans's chest, straight into the heart. The man made a choking noise, reaching up to pull the syringe out of his body, eyes bulging in total surprise. His body jerked back, red shades slipping off of his nose and clattering to the floor. Red-yellow eyes stared at his attacker.

The black-clad man snatched the syringe from Laumont's hand and wrapped his fingers around the shorter man's throat.

"One down, eleven to go." Mason practically snarled at the other man.

He pocketed the empty syringe and took out another, imitating his previous action with the first needle. Hans only grunted in further pain and surprise before his mutated eyes fluttered closed and his body went limp. As soon as the body went slack in his grasp, Mason released Laumont's neck, letting him crumple to the floor. He pocketed the second empty syringe and shook his head slowly.

"I'm disappointed, number five. I expected a fight out of a Wesker child. I hope they're all not this easy. I'd like a challenge...Kincaid!"

The man in the black suit and tie reappeared in the doorway. "Yes, sir?"

"Prepare the private jet. I'm flying out tonight."

Chris walked alongside Laura as they headed to the facility's laboratory together. They reached the elevator at the end of the hall and the doctor swiped her card through a scanner, gaining access to the panel. The Asian woman stepped into the elevator and he followed her in, doors shutting automatically behind them. She pressed the button for the second basement level and the elevator began its descent.

Ada would have gone with them to meet Excella and the others but she'd had to excuse herself when her cell phone made a noise and had said she'd catch up with them. He wasn't sure how exactly the female planned to do that. She didn't even know where the lab was in this building. Of course, with Ada's past experiences, Chris wouldn't put it past the operative to swipe some guard's access card to use the elevator to make her own way down to the laboratory to meet them.

When the elevator came to a halt, the doors opened and the two stepped out of the elevator. Dr. Chen moved down the wide, brightly lit hallway at a brisk pace and Chris had to put a little effort into his walk to force his tired and still rather injured body to move, in order to keep pace with the woman. It was when they'd gone about ten yards down the empty corridor when he began to feel as though something was off.

It was very quiet down there and there was a familiar smell in the air. Everything felt..wrong. The silence that reigned reminded Chris of the underground labs when he'd been trapped in the mansion outside Raccoon City in 1998. The silence was one that sounded a warning in his heart. And the smell..the coppery smell coming from nearby. It was the smell of blood and from the strong scent of it, relatively fresh blood. On instinct, he lowered his hand to his gun holster on his right thigh, only to remember that Wesker hadn't given him any of his weapons or equipment back. It felt like his heart was pounding in his ears as panic threatened to take ahold of him. He was unarmed and there was something deadly down there with him. With him and Laura. He'd forgotten about the doctor for a minute there.

"Dr. Chen."

The woman glanced over at him, completely oblivious to the imminent danger he could sense. She gave him a pretend annoyed look and then smiled gently.

"I told you, you can call me Laura."

"Laura. Stop."

She did stop. He could tell she could hear it in his tone that he was dead serious.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Redfield?"

He started to respond to her when something caught his attention. She'd shoved her access card for the elevator back in her pocket but the top half of it was still sticking out a bit. He couldn't read anything on it but the picture was within his line of sight and it was a picture of a caucasian woman with blonde hair. It was only then that he spotted the bulge in that same pocket of a familiar form and he internally scolded himself for not noticing sooner. The "doctor" was carrying a gun.

Chris raised his eyes to more closely examine Laura's face and that's when he saw it. The brunette had been lucky and looked at just the right moment. He'd looked in time to spot a brown contact lens shifting lazily back into place over a yellow iris rimmed with red.

"Mr. Redfield? Is something wrong?" Dr. Chen asked him, sounding genuinely concerned.

She was a good actress. He'd give her that much. The agent lunged forward and successfully snatched the weapon from her pocket, the access card slipping out and onto the floor. The gun was a 9mm and felt comfortable in Chris's hands. In the S.T.A.R.S. a 9mm Beretta had been standard issue. He leveled the gun at her, the weight of a loaded weapon had never felt so good.

"You're what's wrong, Laura. If that's even your name."

The woman dropped the act immediately. "It's really too bad you didn't realize who I was until we got down to the basement. You would have stood a much higher chance of survival. Though, your odds are already quite bleak."

"I think you mean _what_ you are. I _didn't_ realize what you are. But now that I know you're a monster, I can put you down."

The pretty Asian woman gave him a small smile, though the smile never came close to reaching her eyes. She removed her prescription glasses and let them drop to the ground where they broke on impact.

"I have heard you have encountered one of us before. I've heard you fought him three times and survived each encounter." Laura told him, relaxing her stance into a fighting position. "Now, you will fight me. Come on, lets play."

The screaming. He loved it when they screamed. Cries of pure agony and torment. Was it a sick and twisted perversion? Yes, probably. But he liked it that way. Krauser glanced briefly at where Wesker was staring at the thirteen images up on the screen, Excella practically hanging off of his side as she pretended to share the same interest in the pictures as the tyrant obviously did. That woman would never allow herself to see the truth. Wesker didn't need her. He didn't need anyone nor did he want anyone.

Wesker was like Krauser in that respect. They cared nothing for human beings. And Krauser, well he liked to make people suffer. It was his favorite thing to do when he had some free time. This moved his thinking to his latest conquest, the relentless Christopher Redfield.

"_Hm..humor as a defense mechanism." _

_Krauser had seen it as clear as day. Chris Redfield kept his fear inside for as long as he possibly could. Using defiance on him was no good, however. With his superhuman capabilities, he could smell the very fear off of a man. This man was afraid whether he even realized it himself yet. Redfield tried to deny that he used humor to deflect the scared feelings fighting to emerge on the surface. This angered the scarred man and he brought his combat knife up and against the other man's throat in a heartbeat._

"_Why don't we start off with something real simple. Your name."_

"_No."_

"_Your name."_

"_Not-going-to-happen."_

_Krauser lifted the knife from Chris's neck and the man appeared to relax, seeming to think immediate danger was gone for the time being. He brought the knife down at an angle, slashing the brunette across the chest. His prisoner managed to hold in the shout that so clearly desired to emerge from his throat, keeping his lips tightly sealed to contain the outward signs of pain beneath his false bravado. _

_This captive had courage and a strong will. Well...Krauser would soon break him of that. _

_He clenched a hand around Redfield's neck, his grip gentle but unmistakably threatening. The other hand ran the knife slowly down the side of Chris's face. He had to hand it to Chris, the man didn't even flinch or balk as the two locked eyes. _

"_So tell me soldier, have you ever been caught by the enemy before?"_

"_Define caught."_

"_That's a yes." Krauser concluded with a smirk. _

_He let the smile drop from his face. "I can tell you this, pretty boy. You've never been captured by someone like me. And you and I, we're gonna have a hell of a time."_

_With the conclusion of that sentence, he tightened his grasp around Chris's throat and stabbed the knife deep into the flesh of Chris's thigh. A strangled cry escaped the man's mouth before he could stop it and this brought a smile to the scarred man's lips. _

"_Now we're getting somewhere." _

Krauser became aware that Wesker was telling Excella Gionne that they were going to retrieve Chris and Ada before heading out of the facility. He must have missed what their next destination was going to be but it didn't matter. Wesker would directly give him his orders and he would follow them. He would do so because he was certain of one thing, the blonde tyrant was on the winning side of whatever he decided to go up against. The superhuman being was out to transform the world into something much more glorious and Krauser was behind that a hundred percent. It's not like a freak like him had anywhere else to go anyway.

He followed silently behind Wesker and the Italian woman as they left the room and moved down the hallway back to the waiting area where they'd left the other two. It only took them a minute to get there but when they did, only one of the two was still waiting for them. Ada Wong stood over by a sofa, arms crossed over her chest. Her head was slightly tilted to the side and she was biting down anxiously on her bottom lip. When Krauser came into the room with Wesker and Excella, the woman in red seemed relieved.

"There you are. I thought I'd be able to find the labs but you need a keycard to use the elevator so I couldn't exactly get there on my own." Ada told them.

Excella frowned at her. "The labs? You?"

It was obvious to the soldier that the rich woman didn't know what she was to think at the moment and apparently had opted to utter gibberish.

"Where's Chris?" Wesker demanded of the Asian woman.

Ada gave the tyrant a confused look. "He went with that doctor to the lab. I had a call to take, said I'd find them when I was done."

"What doctor?" Excella questioned, her tone suspicious.

"Dr. Chen. Um..Dr. Laura Chen. She said she was a scientist at the lab here. She told Chris and I that Excella sent her to take us to you guys. She was lying? Well then who is she?"

"Laura, Wesker child number ten." Wesker stated.

Krauser found this turn of events to be obnoxious. "One of them here? What would they be doing here in one of Tricell's buildings?"

"I have a better question." Ada pointed out. "What would a Wesker child want with Chris?"

**Author's Note: **Please review. Let me know if where I'm going with this is at all interesting to you guys. I thought this chapter turned out particularly well but that's just me. I want to hear what my readers think!


	7. Preferential Treatment From Influential

_**Preferential Treatment From Influential Individuals**_

There was a certain thrill that came with every fight. There was a surge of adrenaline that coursed through one's body as they tapped into energy normally kept in reserve. When a person enters into a fight, the key to winning is to always remain at least two steps ahead of the opponent or opponents. In certain cases, the adversary is more adept, a higher caliber fighter. When this is the case, being even one step ahead of the opposition may be impossible and a very different fighting style must be adapted. This style of fighting was what Chris had selected to use at the moment.

The type of fighting basically consisted of trying to stay alive by running and shooting pointlessly, as 9mm bullets, even if they managed to hit the super fast form of Laura Chen, would be little more than an irritation to her. That was something Chris had learned with Wesker. It was better not to piss off a being with, admittedly, exceptional abilities. When that happened, they tended to blame you for the failure of their original plans and hunt you down with a strong desire to cause you an agonizing death. Following that line of thinking made the brunette wonder why Wesker had left him alive when killing him would have been as simple as swatting a fly. Instead the blonde tyrant had chosen to effectively mindfuck him, while literally fucking him as well, into confusing the hell out of him and leaving the BSAA agent to flounder as he tried to figure out where to go from there.

Chris ducked as a large steel pipe that had once been attached to the wall came flying at his head. The chunk of metal missed him by only a few inches and embedded into the wall. He sank to one knee behind one of four steel containers in the hallway where the elevator resided, catching his breath. This Wesker child, Laura, really liked to throw whatever was handy. It reminded him of an ex-girlfriend actually. WHAM! A fist nailed the side of the container centimeters from where his face was.

"Come on, Chris." Laura taunted, standing directly in front of him and leering with a rather wicked smile and yellow-red eyes.

It seemed she had shed the brown contacts sometime in the last few minutes while he'd ducked and dodged flying objects.

"Get your head in the game."

She snaked out a hand to latch it around his throat. Chris placed the muzzle of the handgun to her chest and pulled the trigger three times. The Asian woman cursed and backhanded him so hard against the face that he was knocked sideways off his feet.

While he was trying to figure out which direction was the ceiling and which way was the floor, Laura was frowning down at her blouse which was bloodstained and now contained holes. She gritted her teeth and glared at Chris.

"I-really-liked-this-shirt," she informed him, placing emphasis on every word.

The male raised his eyebrows at the superhuman being and did what any muscular, relatively healthy, all-American man would do in this situation. As her eyes began to glow red, he ran the other way.

He rounded the wide corner and skidded to an abrupt halt. There were at least four bodies of scientists in white lab coats splayed across the floor in front of him, blood spray covering sections of the room near the corpses. There was also black counters with vials and beakers everywhere. It seemed he'd found the labs. A door opened and closed in a hall branching off from the lab area. A man with short brownish-blonde hair wearing a light blue v-necked t-shirt and dark blue jeans was standing in the brightly lit corridor connected to the lab.

Upon seeing Chris standing at the opposite end of the lab, he smiled. The agent was curious to know if all the Wesker children somehow had the same creepy smirk because although he couldn't clearly see the color of the man's eyes, Chris knew he was a product of the Wesker project as well.

"Hello. Christopher Redfield, right? My name's Jonah. I'd watch out if I were you."

The brunette glanced over his shoulder and did a double take before diving for cover behind one of the counters. Bullets sprayed the countertop from a machine gun Laura had acquired sometime in the last thirty seconds. He heard glass shattering and Chris silently hoped there were no dangerous chemicals or viruses in any of the beakers or containers stored on the lab tables. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse than facing down not one, but two Wesker children, Chris heard the sound of padded feet on the hard white floor and a quiet growl that began to grow louder as it drew closer. A canine growl.

The bullet spray ceased for the moment so the agent used the opportunity to sneak a peek over the countertop. The man, Jonah, was holding the door he'd recently come from open, allowing three dogs out of the room and into the lab. Chris had no doubt that these creatures were infected with the deadly T-Virus and that they wouldn't hesitate to rip his throat out. Chris found himself wishing he hadn't wasted so many bullets on Laura. He checked the clip. Only five rounds left. He would need perfect headshots to take them all out.

He raised his weapon and aimed to shoot the dog closest to him. The shot missed when Chris was forced to dive to the floor, scrambling to get behind the other counter. Laura was shooting at him again. The distraction was enough to give the dogs the time to reach the former S.T.A.R.S. member. One of them leapt at his throat and he was able to raise his arm up in time to deflect the canine, who bounced twice before sliding to a halt several yards away. The brown-haired man felt razor sharp teeth clamp down on his leg and yank. Chris shouted out in pain as he was dragged a few feet by the T-Virus afflicted animal.

The third dog jumped onto his chest, barking and chomping at his throat. The agent brought the gun up to the side of the creature's head and pulled the trigger, blowing its skull apart. He then lifted a heavy boot from the leg not being assailed, and jammed it against the dog's gnashing teeth. The animal was temporarily knocked back and Chris used the opportunity to put a bullet square between it's eyes.

It went down with a whimper and a thrash or two, ceasing to move after that. Two down, one to go. He got up and ran across the room as a spray of bullets hammered the ground where he'd been laying. The big weapon clicked empty and Laura tossed the gun to the side, narrowing her eyes at Chris.

"You're not paying attention!"

Using her superhuman speed, she crossed the room and lifted him up by the throat. It didn't seem fair. Chris was as buff as he'd been able to get over ten years of hardcore workouts, and this female had the capability to send him soaring across the room with the flick of a single finger. Continuing to hold him up off of the ground, the brunette could already tell the crushing grip would leave bruises on his neck. She stared at him until he met her gaze.

"Look at me!" she demanded of him, shaking him a little. "You're supposed to be something special. You have an excellent survival rate, unshakable beliefs, relentless desire to sacrifice your own well-being for the sake of others..the stuff heroes are made of."

Chris's eyes shifted to his left when he heard someone approach. It was Jonah and the remaining Doberman which was sitting quietly beside the man like a dutiful pet dog.

"So come on, hero," the male Wesker child started with a smile. "Show us what you've got. Show us what a human is like."

Laura threw him to the ground and backed off, dropping a magnum at his feet. Chris checked the gun, it was loaded with a nine round clip. The BSAA agent looked from Jonah to Laura, neither saying a word until he got to his feet. Laura adjusted the lab coat, ensuring it was snugly around her shoulders and gave him a small smile.

"Time to play."

Wesker, Excella, Krauser, and Ada rounded the corner to the hall with the elevator at a brisk pace. Excella had notified security of the situation in the labs and ordered them to steer clear but guard the elevator for anyone who might try to leave. Therefore the blonde tyrant fully anticipated the half dozen bodies they found strewn about the white-walled hallway. He did not expect the two people, a man and a woman, standing in front of the elevator doors however. They wore nothing to conceal their eyes and it became immediately perceived they were both Wesker children.

The woman was of African-American descent with long black curls cascading down over her shoulders. She wore a dark brown shirt, a red leather jacket, tan pants, and a dark brown belt and heeled boots of a matching color. The other individual was a white male with a shaved beard and an angular appearance. He was tall and lanky, but still visibly muscular. This one was about six feet tall, a black silk dress shirt, dark slacks, and a handsome face that bore a smug smile as he watched the four approach. They stopped a relatively safe distance away and the woman chose that moment to speak.

"Felicia, Miles. We're in place as an intervention..of sorts. Jonah and Laura don't want any interruptions so we're here to entertain you."

Wesker gritted his teeth, the only sign of his irritation at the delay. "Not interested."

"I don't believe we asked if you were interested or not." Miles started, quick to be angry, he took a couple of menacing steps towards the four of them but stopped when Felicia held up a hand.

"Calm yourself, Miles. Wouldn't want to hurt one of our own now would we."

The Wesker child just grunted and ran a hand over his shaved skull, scuffing a shoe against the floor. "I wanna play with Mr. Hero. Why'd I get stuck up here while Jonah gets all the fun?"

"Shut up!" Felicia snarled, then took off at a super fast run down the hall towards them.

Wesker and Krauser glanced at one another, a silent message exchanged, and then Wesker ran past the female Wesker child while Krauser readied himself to face Felicia. Ada on the other hand, stood back, keeping Excella behind her. The secretive agent would have liked to join the fight but she knew right now they'd want her watching out for the Italian woman. She did, after all, have her uses.

Wesker smashed shoulder first into Miles, driving them both into the elevator doors. The metal doors dented inwards slightly from the impact of their bodies. They fought brutally, neither of them relenting or showing signs of easing up anytime soon. Krauser was using more of a guerrilla tactic with his fight, attacking Felicia and then backing off or hiding around a corner. He was drawing her farther and father away from the elevator hallway but she either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Interesting." Felicia noted, ducking a punch from the muscular man and hitting him square in the chest with a spin kick. The big man stumbled back and the Wesker subject continued her thought.

"This isn't any virus I'm familiar with. Perhaps a parasite of some sort. You appear in control of your temper..so not Type 2, perhaps your body has been modified with a version of Type 1 Las Plagas then?"

Krauser's answer was a right hook to her face before backflipping several times to put distance between the two of them.

"Maybe I'm just good at appearing to be what I'm not."

The Wesker child's gaze lowered to his left arm where veins were beginning to bulge and the skin was darkening. A smile spread across her face as she observed this.

"Maybe," the woman commented, her eyes still on his arm which was slowly returning to its regular skin tone.

It was as though simply by looking, she knew that arm could mutate if Krauser was wounded or got angered enough. The scarred man glowered at her, seeming annoyed Felicia was trying to examine him while they fought.

"See, that's the trouble with you women." He raised both arms as though to signify he was harmless. He was anything but. "You ruin your appearance of beauty when you open those pretty mouths of yours and talk, talk, talk."

The woman stared down the corridor at him, her gaze stone cold.

"And then there's guys like you." Felicia mentioned, continuing to stare him dead in the eye. "People only have to take one look and they'll know what you're all about."

Krauser chuckled at the retort. "I'm hiding the pain, really."

"A man like you is simple to understand. Makes it all the more easy to exterminate your kind from the face of the planet. People like you have a one track mind that'll destroy you every time. I've seen plenty of people like you. So certain of your invincibility, so certain of your strengths and abilities. That one track mind though.."

She drew a magnum revolver that had been tucked in the back of her belt and tapped it against the side of her head. "Sounds your defeat without failure."

"What the hell you talking about, one track mind? Men and their obsession with sex? What does that have to do with the destruction of my _type _of people? I thought you Wesker project chosen ones were supposed to be of superior intellect."

Felicia didn't even blink. "Violence, Jack Krauser, not sex. You are a man of violence. You live and breathe it."

She leveled the heavy handgun to point at his head. Even with the relative distance between them, Krauser had little doubt she could land a direct hit.

"You did great violence to Chris Redfield and yet he endures. This interests us greatly."

Krauser's breath caught. "What?"

A frown creased her cream-colored forehead. "I've said far more than I should have. Come now, let me introduce you to the darkness only true death can bring."

Wesker hit the wall back first but was gone by the time Mile's fist punched a hole into the concrete. The shaved headed man managed to spin around in time to catch a roundhouse kick in the ribs. He grimaced as he straightened up, several broken ribs grinding against each other. His injuries did not deter him at all however, and he began throwing his fists at the blonde, most likely hoping to wipe the smirk that had appeared on Wesker's face off. The tyrant flipped himself over his opponent, landing neatly on both feet in the direction of the other man.

"You seem like a very angry man." Wesker observed, his tone conversational. "You should do what I do. Realize the full extent of your power and embrace it. Only then can you comprehend no one can stand in the way of your objectives."

"Godliness is your thing, Albert. _Fury_ is my power trip."

"It's Wesker and don't you forget it."

"Now that you mention about no one being able to stand in your way.." Miles began, a rather sly smile growing on his face. "If that's true, how come you haven't accomplished your own objectives? Why is it we have yet to see your new world?"

"You won't succeed in getting a rise out of me." Wesker said, pushing his sunglasses firmly to ensure they stayed on his face. "I know this is what you are trying to do. Don't. I won't say it again."

"You like being in control don't you, _Wesker_. You control the circumstances around you in order to get what you want and when you don't, you do get angry. You get really angry. Like at Redfield. You feel such enormous hatred towards Chris Redfield that you could snuff out his life in the blink of an eye. But you're such a heartless and cruel bastard, you allow him to live because you know that is a greater sufferance for the man than death could ever bring."

"You're right and you're wrong." Wesker both admitted and denied. "I view everyone and everything around me as insignificant so I kill without remorse and I'm sure you do the same. I believe it may be a minor side effect of the experimental virus we were given. Chris, well, he's not just anyone. He's managed to hold his own against me in a fight for the most part, time and time again, so yes, he interests me."

"Now that, I believe." Miles told the other tyrant with a grin. "We find Chris Redfield to be remarkable. It's why we chose him."

Wesker froze, becoming impossibly still. "Chose?"

Instead of answering, Miles threw himself at the other man as he continued the persistent attack.


	8. Targeted

_**Targeted**_

On July 22, 1998, Chris Redfield had had a very long day because apparently he lived to work. The recent gruesome murders of Raccoon City civilians found near or around the forest outside of the city kept him and the other S.T.A.R.S. members extremely busy searching for answers to the victims found partially eaten, often by both animals and humans. He rarely had time for himself and barely time for things like dating. So when he did find himself a date, a second date, and then a third date with a woman who clerked for a judge, he jumped at the chance.

Chris had gotten lucky and he knew it. Someone was willing to spend time with him when he actually had the time for her and that was a mercy to put up with a guy like that. Her name was Kara Hathaway and she was intelligent, beautiful, and attending law school as a third year while clerking to pay the bills. Better than all of that, she had a great laugh and she liked _him_.

He'd worked late at the S.T.A.R.S. office which was housed in the Raccoon City police department, making a few phone calls to try and follow a lead concerning the bizarre murders only to end up with another dead end.

_It was raining and he was already twenty minutes late to meet Kara. He found her waiting just inside the entrance of the restaurant._

_"I'm sorry!" were the first words that spilled from his lips._

_She stared him down sternly, crossing her arms over her chest._

_"We said eight o'clock."_

_I know, I'm sorry. Time got away from me at work. Won't happen again."_

_"Like I haven't heard that one before," she glowered._

_Chris was silent for a moment, unsure of the right thing to say._

_"Kara.."_

_Her eyes lightened all of a sudden and Chris thought he saw the faintest twitch of her lips upturning. He looked closer at her._

_"Wait, are you joking?"_

_A smile spread across her face then. She'd been leading him on. Kara laughed softly at his stunned expression._

_"I'm learning to be a lawyer, Chris. Deception is often our game. I'm sure you've had that sort of trouble get in the way of your gungho ways, isn't that right?"_

_Her smile told him she was simply messing with him._

_"Again with the jokes. Is this my punishment for being late?" he asked her as he followed her into the restaurant and to where the two of them were to wait to be seated._

_"Punishment? Consider this to be a treat."_

_They got the signal from the hostess and followed her to where they were seated at a small booth towards the back. Kara ordered wine and Chris stuck with water as the hostess left them to browse the items on the menu. Out of nowhere, she leaned slightly over the table and added to her previous sentence about treating him with her humor._

_"Hey, I'm funny."_

_He smiled at that. When a lady's right, she's right. _

He never had another date with Kara. In fact, he never saw the young woman again. She likely perished along with the other inhabitants of Raccoon City after the outbreak occurred and the government stepped in with their solution of a nuclear bomb. Sometimes he felt guilt for not saving her. Guilt for not even thinking about her. He'd been too distraught by the deaths of some of the members of Alpha and Bravo team. Too devastated by the betrayal of his superior officer, Captain Albert Wesker, and the deception of the pharmaceutical corporation Umbrella. No surprises there. Chris had failed another woman in his life, another person he cared about.

There were numerous times throughout his life, when Chris had felt trapped and certain his chances of survival were slim to none. The mansion incident where many of his comrades and friends had died in a single night, was one of those times. He'd come to accept after that night, after learning Umbrella was going to get away with being the cause of the death of his fellow S.T.A.R.S. soldiers as well as many of the Corporation's own employees, that there would be many more missions to come. When he learned months later that his former captain, Albert Wesker, was still alive and no longer human, he became more determined than ever to continue the fight against people who would use biological weapons against innocents.

_Count yourself dead at the outset._ That was what Chris had learned to do each time he was assigned to a mission by his organization, the BSAA. And so that was what he'd done when he had been assigned to the mission in Africa. To remain breathing even now was a miracle, or possibly God's idea of a sick joke. Either way, it didn't change anything. The brunette was here in this Tricell facility fighting for his life. Fighting for his own life because even though it wasn't worth saving, to Chris, it was worth surviving as long as his living meant he would be able to continue fighting for others. For the ones who _were_ worth saving.

The agent ducked behind one of the lab counters for what felt like the hundredth time. This running and hiding tactic was getting old. All he had managed to accomplish with it was that now he was exhausted, not to mention bleeding at a relatively constant rate from a recently acquired bullet wound, and the two Wesker children were getting bored. He knew this because they were openly voicing it to him.

"Come out, come out, where ever you are." Laura called out in a singsong way.

He heard Jonah's voice next. "I've found you!"

"Gah!"

The noise escaped Chris's throat as he was lifted from the ground by his shirt collar, a finger poking into his chest in an accusing manner.

"He's not trying," the man holding Chris a few inches off the floor proposed to his partner.

The woman only shrugged. "Perhaps he wants to die. Perhaps we should grant him his request."

"Not an option." Jonah said sharply. "Maybe we are too powerful for him. His true potential may yet reveal itself but not here."

Chris really wanted the red-yellow eyes of the man to quit staring into his.

"You wish to go to phase two? So early?" the Asian woman asked after hopping down from a metal box she'd been probably using to find his hiding spot.

"Yes. It is as we thought. He needs incentive."

"Hey!" Chris shouted at the man whose face was mere inches from his own. "I'm right here! Stop talking about me like I'm not here. Oh, and for the record, I sure as hell am trying."

As he finished his words, that was the moment Chris chose to jam the piece of shrapnel he'd picked up during the time he'd been playing a rabbit to his two hunters in the facility's basement, deep into the man's chest. Jonah released him immediately and stumbled back, blood pouring from his lips.

"Jonah!"

Laura ran forward and Chris staggered away from the fallen Wesker child, preparing to try and defend himself from the other. The brunette was surprised when she ignored him completely and chose to kneel by her male companion's side. He didn't understand a Wesker child showing genuine care and concern for another being in the slightest but he didn't have time to be curious or surprised. He wasn't going to waste his chance for escape. Chris ran for the elevator, taking inventory of the condition his body was in as soon as he made it into the elevator, the doors sliding closed behind him.

One of his pant-legs was torn, his leg bloodied from where the dog had clamped down on it. His throat ached and he could feel the bruises there, while his shoulder throbbed from where the bullet had gone through and through. Laura had managed to get ahold of his own weapon minutes earlier, turned it on him, and fired it through his body at point blank range. Then there was also the ribs which hurt badly from being kicked around by the two superhuman beings, but he figured they were only bruised and not broken. That was something positive at least. He needed at least one thing positive since his face practically felt numb from the amount of bruising and swelling which was likely happening from the super strong blows he'd received. It didn't help his attempted optimism much that there was blood running from a deep gash on his forehead and into the one eye that didn't actually hurt, making it even more difficult to focus his sight.

The elevator made a musical sound as it reached the designated floor and the shiny metal doors slid open. He took a single step out and the first thing he saw, two blurs of motion locked in what he could only assume was combat by the violent nature of the lightning quick movements. Chris's eyes locked on movement straight ahead down the hallway, at Krauser as he practically threw himself around the corner into the same hall as the brunette, and down onto the floor. Bullets that must have been packing quite a punch by the sizable holes left smoldering upon impact, slammed into the wall across from the blonde, muscular man. He watched as Krauser jumped up in time to block a kick from a woman with dark hair and somewhat dark skin, after she appeared in front of him moving at an inhuman speed. To Chris's right, all the way down the corridor, was Ada and Excella. Ada was backing away from the woman and Krauser as they became locked in hand-to-hand combat, pushing the Italian woman along with her.

The entire duration of this observation only took a second or two but it felt to Chris as though everything was moving in slow motion. He was just a tad stunned to find that after getting himself out of one battle, he had somehow managed to walk straight into another. As the doors slid shut behind him again, the elevator made a second brief musical sound before it began it's descent. He didn't do a whole lot of thinking about how that meant someone had called the elevator down because this time the noise from the elevator was heard. The two blurry persons suddenly became clear and solid as both ceased fighting or motion of any kind. The woman fighting Krauser halted her assault to look towards the elevator and so the scarred man did the same. Ada and Excella peeked around the turn in the hallway on Chris's left, where they had been taking cover, and it would have been comical to Chris if he didn't feel like he was in intense danger.

He felt Wesker's eyes examine him up and down, taking in his poor condition, and he shifted uncomfortably. Everyone remained watching him without saying anything and it wasn't a pleasant thing. With the way Wesker was looking at him, if he didn't know any better, he'd say the blonde looked impressed. The tension in the air was palpable and he decided to be the first to say anything since nobody else was volunteering.

"Uh, hi."

_Really? That was the best you could come up with? _

"Impossible. Where are Laura and Jonah?" the woman down the hallway from him demanded.

The one who had been moving as quickly as Wesker, a man with a shaved head and black clothing much less suited for combat than the blonde's black leather outfit, answered the woman who appeared to be his partner.

"What? You don't even have faith in your own project, Felicia?"

The man's tone suggested he was teasing her and she responded by glowering at him. Chris noticed almost immediately that these two had red-yellow eyes. More Wesker children. Two plus two made four. Four Wesker children were in the building and they seemingly had come to kill him. It figured he would have the misfortune to have not one Wesker child as his enemy, but five. Now five of them were specifically targeting him for death. At least, he presumed Wesker still wanted to kill him. The blonde tyrant had been acting out of character of late but that didn't mean he had changed one bit. Chris reasoned it probably just meant he was plotting out something extra devious and evil to inflict upon him.

"Shut up, Miles. Reveal nothing."

The man, Miles, licked his lips as he turned his eyes onto Chris. "I wanna play with him."

Chris picked up on the suggestion behind those words and winced. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what was so goddamn appealing that people wanted to "do" stuff to him. His concentration shifted to the elevator, watching as the numbers began to light up, beginning at the second basement level and moving upward. He glanced from the elevator to Wesker, hoping he could get across his message with only that look. In case he couldn't, Chris put his back to the wall farthest from Miles, sliding against the flat surface in the opposite direction of the elevator. Put as much distance between himself and the elevator. Leave Wesker in the middle. That was his goal for the moment.

He'd gotten a few yards from the elevator when Miles and Wesker picked up on why Chris was moving the way he was. The elevator made a ringing noise. Both Wesker children reacted in the same instant. Miles went for Chris and the blonde predicted the movement, ramming his shoulder into the other man in black. The act drove both men into the wall about a foot from where Chris was standing. The elevator's doors slid open.

Laura and Jonah were standing inside as predicted. What the brunette hadn't predicted, was that Laura would be holding a rocket launcher. As soon as the doors had opened up, she'd immediately propped it up over one of her bony shoulder blades.

"Shit!"

Chris was a little surprised the curse had come from Felicia but he didn't let it distract him as the woman disappeared from view. When he caught sight of the rocket launcher, he dove to the floor. Just at the right time too as a rocket flew over his head, on down the hallway. It exploded upon impact with the wall and he hoped no one had been in its path.

_Whoah, did I really say that? What do I care if any of these people get hurt or killed?_

Apparently he did care, no matter what had been done to him in the past. Still, Chris told himself it was that he didn't want Ada to get hurt since she appeared to be on the good side, at least most of the time. His head turned back, looking over his shoulder to the elevator where he spotted Jonah loading another rocket into the back of the rocket launcher for Laura, who then shifted to prop it back on her shoulder. Expecting another rocket to come flying at him, he flattened himself down on the floor again.

He needn't have bothered however, as Wesker seemed ticked off at the projectiles being sent down the hall. At least, Chris assumed he was by the growl that passed through the tyrant's lips as he straightened up, moved to stand directly in the path of the large weapon as Laura fired, and snatched the rocket right out of the air before it could hit. For a moment Wesker battled with the momentum of the rocket and then threw it downward, spun around, and kicked it back toward the elevator.

Chris didn't wait to see what happened to Laura and Jonah. At the sound of the explosion, he clambered to his feet and started to move down the hall without looking back. Felicia's face was expressionless as she made her way towards the elevator, ignoring everyone around her except for Wesker. She seemed very focused on Wesker and little else.

Even though Chris was able to make it a little farther from the elevator, the force of the rocket exploding still managed to lift him off his feet. He was able to stay upright and keep his balance after a hand fisted in his shirt, yanking him back to prevent him from flying forward. The hand belonged to Wesker and the tyrant spared him a single glance and a single word.

"Go."

Then the blonde was turning back to Miles. The Wesker child with the shaved head and facial hair was looking infuriated at Wesker, for the interior of the elevator shaft was now consumed in flames. Chris couldn't get a glimpse of either of the other two Wesker children but he wasn't going to wait around to find out if they were dead or not. For once he decided to take Wesker's advice. He ran.


	9. Killers

_**Killers**_

It was raining. He had traveled all the way to Malakoff, France, only to find it was raining here too. Lex Mason glowered at the people traveling past him on the street with their umbrellas and their false sense of purpose. Pathetic creatures humans were. He couldn't even enjoy his solitude of being away from his business and the politics of it all. Not when it was raining so hard. The droplets absolutely pelted down onto his shoulders and boots. Every so often a passerby's gaze would linger just a little too long and Mason was beginning to get fed up with it. In truth he knew it was because he was a tall, rather well-built man, clothed entirely in black. The black attire included black sunglasses which was what kept the casual stranger's eyes on him a little longer.

What kind of person wore sunglasses in the rain? He knew it was what these people were asking themselves. But even though he knew this, inside his mind created a variety of different theories. They were watching him because they knew what he was, something other than human. They were watching him because they could see him for what he was, a killer. Lex recognized that he shouldn't bother thinking these things when he knew them to be ridiculous thoughts. These people had no idea who he was. It didn't matter though. He had fun making them up. Such as right at this very moment.

There was a young woman chattering away on her cell phone. A similarly young man stood near her looking rather bored and unsure of what to do with himself. The situation would read as a possible date gone wrong to any sane person. Mason prided himself on not being like the majority of people out there. He was quite a bit insane and he liked it that way. At the moment he'd concocted the idea that the couple were spies sent to observe him. The man was only pretending to be some random bored guy as the woman reported their findings to superiors. Lex ignored what he knew to be the French word for "mother" leaving the female's mouth as he stalked closer to his prey. This was going to be fun.

He was on the male before the man even noticed he was there. The man flew into the brick wall behind him and dropped like a stack of books to the ground. The foolish woman tried to scream and he stopped that nonsense with a closed hand around her throat. Mason lifted her into the air and squeezed, tighter and tighter. The cell phone had fallen from her hand long ago and her eyes practically bulged from her sockets. A slight sound escaped her throat causing him to tighten his grasp. When he did that, she ceased clawing at his gloved hands draining the life from her. A closer look and he realized he must have snapped her windpipe. She was already dead.

How dare she go and die on him before he'd had time to play with her! It was a pity really. She had been a rather pretty thing. He was getting hard just imagining the sorts of things they could have done together before her life would of ended. A muffled groan caused him to turn around. The male was struggling to regain his footing, appearing disoriented and shaken by the force that had thrown him into a wall. Mason threw the still warm body of the woman so that it fell in the man's line of sight. The young man yelled out in surprise and then horror when he saw his female companion was dead, neck horribly swollen, eyes wide open.

The man forgot about trying to get up when he spotted Lex, and instead tried scrambling backwards, away from the man and away from the dead body of his girlfriend. Mason could never understand those who would destroy all of humanity. Those such as his..friend from Africa who would have the entirety of mankind die to fulfill some kind of desire to evolve the human race. Perhaps such a man was lonely? Wished to somehow save the world by first erasing everything that already existed? Whatever this.._friend's_ motivations were, it did not mesh with his own ambitions. No it did not.

He couldn't very well have the fun he was having right now if there weren't humans walking around any longer. So ignorant, so powerless, so pathetically easy for the taking. Lex could accept a few million less walking the earth maybe, but he liked how things were. So many moving about their daily routines without a suspicion in the

world made for a much easier way to claim them. There was no place for enormous, apocalypse-sized ambitions for him in what he wished to do, nor would there ever be. At the moment his ambition was simple. Have as much fun as time allotted for him today. After all, he did have a business to get back to eventually, as well as other affairs to attend to. Of course, Mason did truly have great disdain for mankind. But he would never desire to have all of mankind wiped out, not completely. If there were no longer humans, what else would he play with?

Mason sighed. The human male had run into a wall in the alley they stood in and had proceeded to tremble and quake as he stared up at the murderer watching him. This one had wet his pants, he could smell the defecation from where he stood. Lex felt himself go limp down there and sighed again. Maybe there would be a little less fun this time around. He liked his prey to have a little more fight in them but this..this was simply pathetic and unenjoyable. He would have to settle for something a little less exciting. Rain still pouring all around them, the shot would be muffled. Not that it mattered to him if he was heard or not. It made little difference either way.

One bullet in the leg sent the guy screaming and crying on the wet ground. He curled himself into a ball, rocking back and forth, as if doing so would protect him from the predator eyeing him. Mason drew close and knelt down beside the man. He placed the gun against his stomach and pulled the trigger once. Then he sat back to watch the young male try to stop the gushing blood and spilling guts escaping from the horrific wound in his gut. It would take him a good while to bleed out and he would be there to watch every last second of this human's last moments. For the first time that day, Mason smiled.

They made it outside under the aid of Excella's hired guards for the building. By that Chris meant the guards were there to be slaughtered by the one Wesker child who had managed to get past Wesker. And yes Felicia was indeed angry. Chris watched her practically eviscerate one of the guards, the entire time her eyes on him, and he made himself run faster.

"Chris! This way!"

The brunette turned towards the sound of Ada's voice and saw a helicopter in the distance heading in their direction. Ada was standing several yards off with Excella at her side. The Italian woman had a radio to her lips and she was speaking into it. It was highly probable she was communicating with the pilot of the chopper and had called it to their location in the first place. At the moment Chris had to admit he wanted to kiss the woman for securing them a way out of this..fire. The building ripped apart in an explosion of flame and debris and he felt himself once again torn off his feet from the force of the blast. His close proximity to the building didn't help any either and he heard himself cry out from the pain suddenly spreading across his body like it's own fire.

He found he couldn't bring himself to get up or even to move at all. The bullet wound in his shoulder was bleeding worse than before. The only positive thing he had to say about it was that it had been a through and through shot so there was no bullet stuck inside of him. Still, it was difficult to see it as a big positive when the hole in him was bleeding so profusely. From his fall to the concrete his pained ribs were hurting him even more and he'd scuffed up his legs and arms. At least he had the knee and arm pads to save that bit of skin. Load of good it was doing him now though. Maybe he should have worn a helmet too because his face had also literally skidded against the cement along with the rest of him. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut by now, the other felt irritated and heavy, likely bruised, bloodshot, or both. Then there was the fact that the pounding in his head made him feel like he'd cracked his skull wide open. Or maybe it was the blood pooling around his head. Fuck had he given himself a concussion? He couldn't remember if he had passed out at all or not.

Chris heard a scream somewhere above the noise of his throbbing brain. He tried to lift his head to see what was going on but failed. The explosion had taken what little energy he'd had left in him. The BSAA agent felt himself being dragged by the arm but when an actual whining sound escaped from his mouth, the grip released his arm and a soft hand lifted his chin to slant upward slightly. It was Ada and she looked really concerned.

"Chris, we have to get away from the building. It's falling apart. The helicopter isn't far, we have to go. Can you walk?"

He knew he couldn't. Not without putting his body through a tremendous amount of pain. But he hadn't survived continuous life and death situations by giving up and not pushing past his limits. Chris drew himself up onto one knee and separated his face from Ada's hand.

"A little help?" he asked her, forcing a slight smile so she wouldn't feel so worried about his health.

It seemed to work because she relaxed visibly and held out a hand to get him to his feet. Once standing, he spotted what he didn't want to see. Felicia was fighting Krauser again, dangerously close to the collapsing building, and Excella was looking upset over the delay in their departure. That was actually the most humorous part about this whole disaster of a day. The perfectly pedicured female was probably more worried about her schedule than she was about anything else happening. Ada released his arm abruptly and went for her gun, drawing it and shooting in one smooth motion. Chris forced his body to spin around and saw what she had. Emerging from the flaming building was Wesker and Miles, still locked in a battle of will power. Behind them came Jonah and Laura and they were who Ada was firing upon.

The two looked terrible and that was putting it nicely. They were almost entirely covered in second and third degree burns and yet were able to walk upright and calm. After Laura took a bullet to the stomach from Ada's gun, she and Jonah stopped short and exchanged glances with one another. Almost in sync with each other, the two looked over at Miles and then Felicia, then they looked back at Chris. Their combined staring did nothing to put him at ease but he could see one thing from their looks. They were going to leave. They were going to go away, at least for now.

He was right. About as soon as he'd had the thought, Jonah, followed by Laura, began to retreat. Away from the burning building and away from him and Ada.

"Miles! Felicia! Evacuate!" Jonah called out to his allies.

Then he took off running with Laura at his heels. Chris found he very strongly disliked that Laura could run even with a bullet to the gut. All these superhuman beings running around made it so unfair. The unfairness doubled in that the majority of them seemed to be taking a special interest in Chris himself. Why? He couldn't see the appeal. He was just another soldier. The brown-eyed male blamed Wesker. It always came back to Wesker. The blonde tyrant's obsession with destroying Chris's soul was what was driving these crazies after him. That was his belief at least. One he doubted would change anytime soon.

Chris limped himself along with Ada towards the chopper. He hadn't even made it three feet before he dropped down flat again. Ada called out his name in surprise as he collapsed. The next second she was urging him not to move as he immediately attempted to get back to his feet. Then suddenly he was on his feet but he hadn't done it himself. Someone was holding him up by the shoulders and arms. It was Krauser and as soon as Chris realized this he tried to wriggle his way free from the man's grasp. The task proved impossible as the man was incredibly strong and then Wesker was there telling him to stop resisting. The agent responded by using the last of his strength to kick the taller man in front of him in the shins.

Unfortunately he was only rewarded with a laugh from Wesker as the blonde grabbed hold of his hand which Chris was trying to make into a fist. _The better to hit the mutated bastard with... _He thought to himself. As if his former tormentor touching him wasn't bad enough, the muscular soldier chose that moment to lean in close to Chris's ear, lips practically brushing against his earlobe as he whispered to him.

"Ah, just like old times, hm Chris? Me behind you, right?"

"Get-the-fuck-away from me!" Chris yelled and tried to free himself.

Only when Wesker gestured for him to release Chris did Krauser do it, and the man wore an annoyingly big grin on his face even in doing so and it drove the brunette up a wall to see it. Chris felt a panic attack coming on and he quickly dropped to his knees, taking in gulps of air and letting it out slowly in order to relax himself. He vaguely heard Krauser saying something and then a female voice cut him off. Chris ceased his breathing to hear what she had to say because it was shocking who had come to his defense.

"Leave him alone. Can you not see you are frightening him? Just keep your distance you disgusting monstrosity!"

When Excella finished her rant she positioned herself between Chris and his past attacker, arms crossed against her chest. He couldn't understand why Excella of all people would try to protect him. Then again he reasoned, how well did he actually know the Tricell CEO? He managed himself back to a standing position once more and glanced back at her. Her own back was to him as she was facing Krauser but he spoke to her despite this.

"It's okay. I've got this handled Excella," he assured the woman who was around a decade younger than him.

There was no need for her to get killed on his account, no matter what sort of evil Corporation she was mixed up with.

"Do not try to be some kind of hero, Chris Redfield. I can see you barely able to stand on two feet. You will be silent and let me do this for you."

Even though he couldn't comprehend what exactly was going on with the wealthy woman unveiling she actually had at least one decent bone in her body, he didn't really have much choice. He knew she was right. He could already feel his legs trembling, wanting to give out on him from pure exhaustion and the excessive bleeding. Wesker came over to Chris and placed one of his arms over his shoulder. Surprising the brunette once again, Excella moved under him to take the other arm so that between her and Wesker they were supporting his weight. He was too tired to argue about it.

Krauser made a disgruntled noise and backed away as the three moved past him towards the helicopter awaiting their boarding. Ada was already at the aircraft and she climbed in the back as they drew nearer. She seemed incapable of meeting Chris's eye as he tried to catch hers, to try and read her. Her not wanting to look at him didn't sit well with him. People who did that were generally hiding something. He let himself be hoisted into the chopper and he made himself work his body enough to take a seat beside the Asian woman sitting quietly. The brunette felt he'd been rather polite to wait this long before passing out, because that was exactly what he did after his back had hardly hit the wall of the helicopter.

Kincaid was a man of habit and simple tastes. He appreciated fine wine and exquisite desserts. He dressed in the same identical black suits and ties each and every day. His choice in weapons could be considered quite simple as well. He carried probably far more weapons than would be advised but even so, he was quick. Quick and clean, that was how his boss preferred it. One of his duties was to take care of the messes Mr. Mason left behind. Messes becoming more frequent in occurrence much to Kincaid's chagrin. He knew the business and how it worked and he knew someone was bound to notice eventually. The police could be blind at times but they weren't entirely stupid. They would make connections. And there were also those outside of the police, other parties that might find interest in locating Mr. Mason.

The rain was letting up by the time he arrived on the street he'd been ordered to go for a job. Dawn was beginning to creep through the clouds and the early morning joggers or shoppers would be out and about soon. It wouldn't be a problem for him. It never was. He could have any area cleaned in twenty minutes or less. Kincaid walked around the corner into the alley he'd been directed to and surveyed the area. Two bodies, massive blood loss by one. Hm..the scene of blood and gore wasn't as bad as past scenes he'd had to clean up for his boss. He didn't waste any time getting to work. After twelve minutes he was done and no trace of evidence could be uncovered by the police or anyone else.

His cell phone rang. He finished stowing the last of the plastic garbage bags into the back of his black Ford Explorer and leaned against the side of the vehicle. After removing red-stained latex gloves and throwing them in the trunk too, he reached into his suit jacket and located his mobile phone. A quick glance at the screen to see who was calling him and then he was flipping the device open.

"Sir."

"Progress report?" the voice on the other end of the phone asked, though it came out as more of a command for a response more than anything else.

"Clean up is complete. And I've learned where that aircraft you were looking for has landed during the last few hours."

"How?"

"An inside source." Kincaid answered. "The source was clear the craft's destination would be temporary. The passengers on board the plane could already be on the move to somewhere else. Someplace inside the United States seems highly probable. My source told me the target has a facility set up that is already active."

"And where did the plane touch down?" questioned Mason from the other end of the line.

Kincaid smiled even though he knew his boss wasn't there to see it. "The location is in France, not too far from our own location. Just an hour ago I pulled live feed from the Internet of a building that exploded for indeterminate reasons. The building belonged to Tricell."

"Interesting..so it is very likely the CEO of the African division survived and is accompanying the target."

"Yes sir. It seems she is continuing to provide financial support for the target's experiments."

"Return to me. We're going mobile again. I've found our next target. After we're done here, we move on to America."

Kincaid heard the click as the line went dead. His boss was certainly always one to be to the point and definitely not one for the small talk. Unless he'd located a particularly fascinating prey. Lex Mason was one to enjoy talks with those he was hunting down. He seemed to get a certain thrill out of toying with his victims and the finely suited man had to admit in some regards, his boss hit the ideal serial killer role right on the nose. He didn't get to decide how his boss chose to behave though. He cleaned up the evidence left behind and did so without a word either way. Who was he to take the moral high ground? Especially when his own past was not one he would ever favor getting out to anyone he worked with.

He was known by the name of Kincaid and only Kincaid. No one would ever know the name he was born with, the identities of his birth parents, or even the place he was born. It wasn't important. He had no friends, no family, no life of his own. Not anymore. In his line of employment, he got the job done or he didn't get paid. It was firmly understood by his current employer Mr. Mason and the arrangement worked well for the both of them.

Kincaid noticed a woman of a rather advanced age peeking out from behind the curtain of her small brownstone home for the fourth time, eyeing him with a mixture of fear and suspicion. He narrowed his eyes at the old lady and the curtain swished back into place again. It was probable she hadn't seen something that would be damaging to him and even if she contacted the local authorities, it would never lead to anything. It never did. He was very good at his job. Even knowing this didn't matter, because the gun-for-hire didn't deal in probabilities whatsoever. He fastened a suppressor onto the end of his primary handgun and gave a small sigh as he headed across the street to the brownstone. It seemed like his work was never quite finished.


	10. Remnants of the Past

_**Remnants of the Past**_

The gentle and steady rhythm of a _beep, beep, beep,_ was the first sign telling him he wasn't where he'd last remembered being. He wasn't in a helicopter any longer. Instead of a hard metal seat, he could feel soft sheets beneath him. Another thing, far more important in his opinion, was that he didn't hurt anymore. And he had the use of both eyes back! Chris laid a flat palm against his once swollen eye just to be sure. It felt okay. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and surveyed his surroundings. A hospital room was where he was. For the first time he noticed he was hooked up to an IV, sensors placed on his chest and on a finger, attached to several monitors displaying his vitals. A thin sheet covered his body which was clothed in a simple hospital gown.

He could feel the bandages wrapped tightly around his ribs. With movement the ribs felt rather sore, otherwise they didn't hurt much. Chris shifted on the bed and slid the sheet partially over to get a look at the leg that he remembered getting bitten pretty bad by one of the infected dogs. The bite wound was almost little more than a scar now, having entered the later stages of the healing process. He moved the hand from his leg to the side of his forehead where there'd been the injury that had taken a lot of blood out of him. The brunette felt the rough texture of stitches. He traced them with his fingers, counting eight of them. Finally, he moved on to where he knew the worst injury to be. His shoulder, where he'd gotten shot at point blank range. There was a thick patch taped over the wound and no signs of bleeding through.

Well, it looked like he hadn't given himself a concussion. No, instead he'd managed to put himself into a coma instead. He could tell a fair amount of time had passed in order for his various wounds to be so far on the mend. It was hard to ignore the growth of facial hair on his face as well. Several weeks must have gone by at the very least, if not more. Chris didn't feel like sitting around. He felt like he had to see the condition he was in with his own eyes. He pulled the sensors off, calmly ignoring the frantic sounds the machines all around began to make immediately. After removing the IV with a sharp intake of breath at the brief moment of discomfort that came with the action, he slid off the bed and over to a mirror on the wall on the other side of the room.

To say he looked good would be an outright lie. To say he looked..tired would be closer to the truth. Both eyes were darkened by the long period of time he'd been unconscious most probably. There were still faint markings around his throat from when the BSAA agent had gotten strangled and lifted off the ground by superhuman psychopaths, set on killing him apparently. A female nurse, followed quickly by a female doctor, burst into the room in a hurry. Both halted in their tracks when they discovered their patient was not in fact crashing and had removed the equipment on his own. He turned towards the doctor as the nurse moved over to take care of the wailing machines.

"Where am I? How long have I been here?"

"You're in Sioux Falls, sir. Didn't you know that?" There was surprise in her voice as she walked over to the end of the bed Chris had recently been occupying and removed a clipboard from the attached folder. "As for how long, according to your chart you were admitted three weeks ago. Ah yes I remember you now. Your brother and his girlfriend checked you in."

"M-my brother?"

"Ah.." Her eyes lowered to the paper in front of her. "Yes, your brother Jack and his girlfriend Ada."

"Oh, right, Jack and Ada. Yeah, okay." Chris couldn't really think of anything else to say to that.

The doctor lowered the chart. "I'm Dr. Philsteen, Mr. Ashford. Could you tell me what happened to you? Your brother didn't seem to know. He said he found you lying on the street badly injured. Your brother then left the hospital before I could speak with him to get more information. Do you know why he would do that?"

Ashford? That had to of been Krauser's doing. After all, the man was infected with the Veronica virus which was created by the Ashford family in secret while Oswald E. Spencer had been busy with his own plans. It was all really very ridiculous in Chris's opinion.

"Ah, no. My brother's never been one to accept responsibility." Chris fabricated quickly as to why someone who was supposed to be his brother would just up and leave him in a coma in a hospital. Meeting her eyes to make it seem as though he were telling the truth, he added, "I don't really remember what happened to me. How I got like this."

Dr. Philsteen stared at him for a long moment and then nodded curtly. "All right, that's okay. I would prefer for you to lay back down but you don't seem like the type who would listen so that's fine, stand there. But, you need to wait here, okay? The police are going to want to come by and speak with you. In any case where a firearm is involved, the police must be notified and they already came by once. Now that you're awake they'll want to talk to you. You never know, maybe you'll remember something about what happened."

"Um, okay. Right. Sounds good."

The nurse and doctor exchanged glances that were possibly significant but Chris ignored them. His mind was busy contemplating how he was going to get out of there without being seen. As soon as he was alone, that was exactly what he did. He snuck out, left arm positioned against his left side to move the injured parts (most importantly the gunshot wound area) as little as possible. Not managing to be seen by a single soul all the way down to the first floor reception area felt like quite the impressive achievement to him. Which made him feel pretty unimpressive when he actually contemplated the thought for a little longer. About a month gone by and he already missed being on a mission. Because at least when he was on a mission for the BSAA, he felt like he had a purpose, something to keep his focus on. It was what he needed to keep himself going.

And what was going on lately? At the rate he kept finding himself getting tortured, beaten, and shot, he might as well be on the job. Which he wasn't, technically. Yup, he wasn't even getting paid for the shit he was being put through.

His organization had probably branded him as officially MIA. As for Jill Valentine or Sheva Alomar? It was anybody's guess what happened to them after they'd sabotaged the missiles Wesker had been planning to launch into the atmosphere to infect the entire world with Uroboros. He wasn't too concerned for their safety. The two women were strong and knew how to take care of themselves. Heck, they'd each saved his life a couple times in the past. But it was the knowledge that they cared about him and his safety which concerned him. He hoped they weren't putting themselves in any danger if they were out there somewhere looking for him. He held on to a hope that they'd returned themselves to BSAA headquarters to give their report on the mission Sheva and Chris had been assigned. It would be big news for everyone in the organization when they found out Jill was still alive as well. Of course, with one Chris Redfield missing in her place, it might damper the celebration a bit...

Chris flattened himself against the wall as a pair of orderlies walked by, careful not to jostle his ribs too much. That was when he spotted the employees only room where conveniently an employee had left a cart of fresh scrubs just outside the door. He snatched a pair of blue scrubs that looked about his size out of the cart and ducked inside to change into them. They fit well enough and he didn't waste any more time in a place more befitting of someone other than him. After vacating the hospital building, he made his way down the street. Dr. Philsteen had revealed he was in Sioux Falls. What was he doing in South Dakota? There was a reason. There always was when it involved Wesker. The insane blonde tyrant was a man with a plan who didn't know how to give up. Chris supposed the man's narcissistic, sadistic, and just plain evil tendencies pretty much helped him along in his ploys which seemed to end with innocent people dying.

The first thing he knew he should do was to get to a phone and make contact with his superiors in the BSAA. Except, if he did that they would send other members out to retrieve him. If that happened there would be more lives in danger. And the agent knew he was indeed in danger still. A fair portion of the Wesker children project survivors were out to get him and it appeared Krauser and Ada had left him at the hospital. Chris knew three other things that he had to factor in to reexamine his predicament. He had been in a coma for three weeks, he was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for a reason, and there was no telling if Krauser or Ada would come looking for him at the hospital. The brunette wasn't about to wait around to find out.

He quickened his pace, moving as quickly as possible considering the injuries he was continuing to deal with for the time being. It was growing dark when he made it to the outskirts of the town. Something which remained true about Wesker was that he often kept his business right outside of populated areas. All the better to sneak one or two for experimentation, right? His time in Africa had not been so long ago and so he had not forgotten the horror of what had become of the inhabitants there. Ten years gone by and yet it did not feel so long since the incident in Raccoon City and the nightmarish mansion that had been hidden away in the forest beyond the city either.

What was he thinking? Was he really going looking for proof of the existence of a new facility which he strongly suspected Wesker of setting up? He should be getting far, far away from this place and any place where the possibility of running into his former captain was at an all time high. But while he knew the best thing for his own health was to get as far from where he was now as he could, he couldn't do that. As an agent of the BSAA, it was his duty to find and investigate any illegal activities, especially those which could be construed as terrorism of a biological nature.

As the hospital disappeared entirely from view, Chris thought over how he was to go about finding the facility which he very much suspected existed somewhere in this town. No, not _in_ this town, but outside of it. That was the most likely location. It was Umbrella's style, it was Wesker's style. The afternoon light did little to hide him from prying eyes and he found himself gathering an increasing number of stares. He had to admit, he must look quite a sight in bare feet, blue hospital scrubs, and his hair and face were probably looking pretty scruffy after weeks of neglect. The BSAA agent decided he had to do something to at least make it appear he could possibly be an employee from the hospital walking around so nobody would get the idea in their heads to call the police or an ambulance for him. The last thing he needed was attention from some hapless do-gooders who really had no clue about him or the predicament he was in.

Eyes scanning the buildings around him on the street, he spotted a gas station and headed on inside. After ensuring the guy behind the counter was occupied with a couple of customers, he snatched a pack of razors and some shaving cream off a shelf. He grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler, checked where the employee's attention was at and then moved into the bathroom. Locking the door behind him, he set to work ridding himself of the facial hair that had come to cover his face with his weeks of unconsciousness. When he was finished, he left the razors and the shaving can in the sink and downed the water in one go. Once the water was gone, he chucked that into the trash receptacle and exited both the bathroom and the gas station. Now he just needed something for his feet.

Chris wasn't sure how he was going to go about getting footwear and the longer he thought on it, the more he realized it would be a good plan to get himself a weapon as well. Especially if he was planning on walking right into a building where possible experimentation was happening. Two blocks up and he was staring across the street at a gun shop. It felt lucky to him but he didn't let it go to his head at all. His luck didn't seem to ever last long. Glancing both ways, he jogged across the street, really wishing he had some shoes on as the hot road burned his feet. He ducked into the shop, a man, the owner perhaps, looked up from some sort of paperwork. His mild gaze shifted to one of suspicion upon taking in Chris's appearance. Namely, the bare feet.

"Lose your shoes, buddy?"

"Uh..yeah. Do you happen to sell any here?"

The man pointed straight ahead of himself, to Chris's right. The brunette glanced that way and found a single shelf with a few types of boots lined up. He gave the guy a quick thanks and walked over, kneeling down and grabbing the first pair he saw that looked close to his size. Boots in hand, he moved to the counter and placed them on top in front of the man. Then he lowered his gaze to the glass case full of weapons, eyes landing on the Samurai Edge 9mm Beretta model among all the other guns. Exactly his kind of gun. There was the manner of going about retrieving said gun however.

"There's a waiting period for firearms, right?" Chris asked, fully aware there was one of course.

Chris watched the guy eye him slowly for a long couple of seconds before setting down his pen and regarding him more closely. "You got a concealed weapon permit?"

"No."

"Then it's a 48 hour waiting period, no exceptions."

His gaze returned to the papers he was looking over and Chris sighed inside. This was going to take a tad more pressing than he'd thought. He decided no more going around the matter. "I'd like to see the Samurai Edge."

This grabbed the employee's attention. "You know about guns?"

Chris couldn't keep the smile off his face. "A little."

The man reached around for his keys and unlocked the case on his side, taking great care as he removed the weapon from its resting place and set it on the countertop in front of Chris. He grabbed a clip of ammo from one of the cases behind him and placed it near the gun.

"Takes 9mm rounds. Now you should be aware, the price is considerable for this particular handgun. The gun was created by a man who custom designed the model. It was for some sort of special law enforcement team or something in the Midwest over a decade ago. He only made a certain number and so this is a very rare gun." the guy looked him up and down for the second time since he had been in the shop. "Are you sure you can afford a gun like this?"

"Kendo."

"Excuse me?"

"Joseph Kendo. He's the man who designed the weapon. I'll take the gun. Paperwork?"

He seemed to have left the other man speechless and probably even more suspicious with such knowledge. Suspicious or not, the man must not have been used to being taken advantage of, because he said he would go get the papers for him to fill out and then disappeared into the back with only one last glance at Chris standing there by the counter. Chris had always been a good guy and hated that he had to rip the guy off. He had to stop Wesker from possible continuation of his horrific experiments if it was going on around this town. He had to or this town could end up like Raccoon City one day.

There wasn't any hesitation when he thought about something like that happening. He dropped the shoes onto the ground and shoved his feet into them. He grabbed the gun, grabbed the ammo clip, and after sweeping the store with his eyes one more time, he took a rather sizeable sheathed knife off of one of the shelves. It was the best he could do with the time he had. If he had his way, he would be fully equipped with combat gear but naturally, there was no possibility of that right now. Chris hurried out of the shop before the guy could make it back to find one of his more prized guns being stolen, among other items.

Once outside he hid the weapons in his boots, which admittedly, were a few sizes bigger than his actual shoe size. He then proceeded to run several blocks to put some distance between himself and the store he'd just robbed. Yes, robbed. By God, he was a criminal now! His eye caught on to something that caused all feelings of guilt to fall away and be forgotten. A newspaper dated four days ago was lying on the sidewalk with a headline which was eerily familiar to him.

"_Family disappears: Police suspect animal attack." _He read further, at the actual article itself. _"A family of four was discovered missing after a family friend came by for a scheduled visit Wednesday evening. The family resided in a cabin in the Western section of the woods just outside the city. A window was broken and blood trails were left behind, leaving the police to believe the home may be the scene of a quadruple homicide at first. Other evidence uncovered has left the police now thinking a pack of wild dogs may in fact be the ones responsible..."_

Chris ceased reading mid-sentence and lifted his gaze until he spotted the tree line of the woods not too far away. He dropped the paper and took off running. As soon as he hit the trees he had his gun out and he increased his speed. It was happening all over again. It couldn't be. It couldn't be happening again. His anger rose as he went. Too many people, too many people were dying over such stupid reasons. So other men could become rich. So other men could unleash weapons in the form of monsters to destroy their enemies. It was sick and twisted and so..wrong. The agent had lost track of how long he'd been running but he skidded to a halt on the grass when he saw something that stole the remains of his breath away.

A mansion. There was a mansion directly ahead of him in a large clearing of the woods. No way was this coincidence. Wesker must have done it. Why, Chris didn't know. The guy had quite the ego so maybe this was his way of memorializing the night he'd turned into the monster he was. At least, the night he'd changed to look like the monster he was on the outside with those freaky eyes. He searched around him, the idea of being taken by surprise and mauled to death by a couple of skinless dogs not sounding appealing to him in the least. Because he knew it was what had killed those people. Whether the dogs had escaped the compound or been purposely let out, remained to be seen. Honestly, either way it was a horrible thing and there was only one objective he had in mind as he covered the remaining distance to the front door of the mansion. He was going to blow the place to oblivion.


	11. Survivor

_**Survivor**_

The place was styled after the mansion designed by Trevor all right. There were some major differences however. For one, the place had definitely been built more recent. It had an older style of décor but there were up-to-date items here and there which clued him in on the time-frame it was built. Also, as he scanned the foyer area just inside the front entrance, he could see Umbrella did not care to conceal that this place was theirs. Or rather, that it had once been theirs. The red and white logo of the corporation was all over the place, most prominently featured on the white tile floor he was standing on.

Chris jogged across the room to the walkway he knew would be behind the stairs. There was a walkway but there was no gated double doors like there had been in Trevor's mansion. Instead, a few pieces of two-by-four were nailed to the wall, obviously covering over something. Curiosity piqued, he pulled at the wood pieces until they gave and then ripped them from the wall. Dumping them onto the floor, he stared at what they had been hiding and couldn't believe his eyes. There, right in front of him, was a device that he clearly recognized as being a control panel for a self-destruct system. Whoever had built the place must have made a massive error by putting such a device so near to an entryway. Knowing Umbrella, he doubted the one to do the construction had met a very pleasant end.

He wasn't about to waste his good fortune. After surveying the device, he quickly set to work figuring out the proper way to set the thing off. A password prompt appeared on the screen and he stared blankly at it. Well crap, how was he supposed to figure out the password? His mind raced as he tried to figure out the possibilities. He didn't know if Wesker had bothered with security, he would suspect no judging by the Cerberus dogs running loose if the newspaper article was any indication. Now that he thought about Wesker, was he even certain the blonde tyrant was the one running this place? He preferred not to find out if he had his way.

Besides, security or not, he didn't think it was a good idea to linger in a place like this. Password..password..password and Umbrella... Could it be, that the password was created by the same man foolish enough to place the device in such an awful location? A smile creased his face and then he was entering a password. _Sir Oswald E. Spencer_. The computer beeped and the red light on it switched to green. All right, time to get out before someone caught on to what he had done.

Chris was making his way across the mansion's foyer, having walked around from the backside of the stairs. He was halfway to the front doors when a masculine voice coming from behind made him pause.

"Agent Redfield, fancy meeting you here."

He could hear footsteps coming leisurely down the stairs. He stood still, listening. There was a possibility of a second pair of footsteps descending the stairs meaning at least two people were coming down to the foyer where he stood at its center.

"What is this? Chris Redfield left speechless? Perhaps we surprised him as much as he surprised us, hm?"

These words came from a second male voice, confirming Chris's suspicions that there were two men on the staircase. The agent turned around and faced what he had to face.

Two men. One reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped there, while the other came to a stop a few steps above him. Both men were about the same height, a little over six feet. One wore a black Armani suit with a white silk dress shirt underneath and sunglasses, and the other wore dark blue jeans, dark boots, a red v-necked t-shirt, a black jacket, and a red baseball cap pulled low over his face. The disguises did little to prevent him from recognizing the both of them after his last encounter with the two.

Chris raised the handgun he'd rather illegally acquired during his travel to the mansion, and aimed it at the one closest to him by the bottom of the stairs, the one in the expensive suit. He tried very hard to pretend he was wearing more than mere hospital scrubs as he took in the two Wesker children standing before him.

"What are you doing here?" the brunette demanded.

"Isn't it obvious?" the one in the baseball cap began, coming down the last few steps, a hand reaching up to rest on the brim of his cap, tugging it further over his face. He was the second speaker out of the two. "You've come because of rumors biological weapons are being created in the basement of this mansion. And we've come to find if there is anything worth finding here."

Chris froze, arms still extended with his gun pointed at the man in the suit, though his eyes were on the one with the jacket and cap speaking to him. Jonah, he recalled the Wesker child's name being Jonah.

The one in the suit and sunglasses gave him a half smile and took a couple of steps towards him. Chris yelled for him to stay where he was. The man's smile widened.

"We never thought you would be the one thing worth finding here, _Christopher_."

The way Miles used his full name, extending the word, somehow was able to bring chills throughout his entire body. Not only that, but the cold realization that he was coming to. The Wesker children Jonah and Miles, finding this compound of Wesker's so quickly. He didn't believe in coincidences. Something was up here. Something wasn't right.

Jonah removed his cap and Miles followed his companion's lead, removing his dark sunglasses and putting them into an inside pocket of his suit. Now two pairs of red and yellow eyes stared back at him. The brunette cursed himself in his own mind about his curiosity and sense of what was right bringing him here. He had probably just walked into his own place of death. There wasn't anything he could do about running into the two Wesker children now so he remembered who he was, a BSAA agent charged with the duty to protect the innocent, and he always would see his duty through. Jonah took a step closer and Chris didn't hesitate, he opened fire.

The man, or rather the superhuman being, became a black and red blur as he avoided the bullets with relative ease. Meanwhile, Miles moved on him from the right, not even bothering to use speed as he walked towards Chris. The BSAA agent shifted his gun to point at him and that was when Miles kicked in his speed and suddenly appeared in front of him. An elbow caught him in the throat and before he could do more than gag, his opponent kneed him in the stomach and then spun and kicked him in the chest. Chris flew back into the far wall with a resounding smack.

Chris was punched, kicked, and thrown around repeatedly. He may have survived two of them in a previous encounter, but then at least he had been equipped with combat gear. At this moment, he was no match for even one superhuman being by himself, let alone a match against two of them in his current condition. Yet the agent continued to get back to his feet despite the screaming protests his bruised, bloody, and sore body was giving him. Chris was shooting at Miles when Jonah kicked him in the back from behind, grabbed his upper left arm and twisted at the shoulder. He cried out as he felt his shoulder being pulled out of its socket but then regained his composure and continued firing at the other one, keeping the monster at bay. At the same time, he ducked to avoid a punch from Jonah and only accomplished allowing Miles to reach him.

Several powerful punches to his stomach caused him to double over and spit up specks of blood. They didn't allow him to recover. Miles followed up the punches by bringing the heel of his shoe down on Chris's back. His gun went flying across the floor. The man ran a hand over his shaved head and it reminded the agent so much of Wesker and the way the blonde smoothed his own hair down, that at that moment a surge of adrenaline shot through his system. He sprang to his feet and actually managed to land a hit to Miles's jaw because he had the element of surprise.

The moment didn't last long when Jonah grabbed his loose-fitting scrub top, spun him around by it so they were face to face, and lifted him up with an iron clad grasp around the brunette's throat. Chris struggled weakly with his right hand, the other arm hanging limp by his side as it remained ripped from the socket.

"Hm..only human..." Jonah muttered, almost more to himself than to Chris.

The BSAA agent gasped as the grip around his neck tightened and his face began to grow red from lack of oxygen, muscles tightening in his neck as his body struggled to find a way to breathe unsuccessfully. Somehow, he found the strength to reach down and unsheath the combat knife he'd gotten in the same store as the gun. The knife that had been tucked away into the boots he'd taken for his otherwise bare feet. The knife retrieved, he then jabbed it into Jonah's outstretched arm.

With a growl, the superhuman being released his hold and Chris toppled to the floor. He staggered away from where he thought Jonah still was and stood ready to fight, only to hear the sound of a gun being cocked. He turned around in all the glory of his torn and bloodied appearance, to find Jonah standing a mere yard or two away with a handgun trained on his face. It was _his_ gun. He felt Miles press up close against his back with the knife that had once been stabbed into Jonah's arm tracing along the side of his throat, and the tyrant whispered something into his ear. Something that scared him because he knew if they wanted to, they could succeed in following through easily and he wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to stop them.

Terrified he meant his words and would try it, Chris threw an elbow back, smacking into his collarbone. Miles started, accidentally cutting him on the side of his neck, and then quite intentionally stabbed the brown-eyed man in the back with the combat knife, piercing just above the right shoulder blade. He stumbled and fell to one knee, blood leaking from the sides of his mouth. The knife was yanked out and plunged into his lower right thigh, the superhuman then backing off. Chris forced himself to stand despite the blade in his leg, and found himself once again looking down the barrel of his own gun in Jonah's hand.

The brown-blonde haired tyrant stared at him with what could only be described as a mixture of curiosity and pity. "Why?"

"Why what?" Chris managed to get out, his voice strained from having been hit, strangled, and cut in the throat at some point.

"Why do you continue to get to your feet?" Jonah questioned. "Why not stay down and die? It would be much less painful then continuing to endure our torment. Your mission has failed. Accept that and give up. You cannot stop Albert Wesker from conducting his experiments, you cannot possibly hope to win against the two of us, and you most certainly will not succeed in ridding the world of its evil as you so pointlessly try. It's over, you've lost."

Chris gave him a weak smile, watching as Miles came to stand beside his partner. "Failed? I've never failed a mission. I always somehow make it back alive. For all your super abilities or whatever you might call what you are capable of doing, the two of you sure aren't too smart. The Wesker I know best would have seen this coming at the start of the fight."

Miles's gaze narrowed. "Seen what?"

"I set the self-destruct system almost 15 minutes ago. And time's just about up. I kept you distracted. Do you see now? I've already accomplished my mission to stop Wesker. It's sure to stop you too..at least for now. So that means _you_ lose."

When Jonah fired two bullets, one into each of Chris's upper thighs, the brunette laughed at them. He didn't care what happened to him now. He'd won. The mansion which undoubtedly held a bio-weapons laboratory was about to go up in flames. In his last moments he had managed to stop Albert goddamn Wesker one last time.

The first explosion shook the entire mansion but the BSAA agent's eyes were on the weapon in Jonah's hand. He was about to shoot him again and this time he knew it would be fatal. He waited for death to claim him but then a black blur swept past him and an impossibility engaged the two superhumans in combat. There wasn't time to look closer to see if he was seeing clearly because then a man stepped in front of him, blocking his view. The man was even more buff than Chris, blonde hair, blue eyes, a scarred face, and combat clothing. The appearance echoed that he was a soldier. To Chris, it echoed that he was Jack Krauser.

"Can you walk?" the man asked in a gruff voice.

Chris gave him one of his very best glares. Krauser rolled his eyes at the reaction he'd elicited out of the other.

"Hi, reality, have we met? Can you walk? The building _is _exploding around us."

Chris lowered his gaze to his bloody legs and then back to the man. One who he loathed with a passion but knew there was little choice in what he would say for an answer. "With help..."

Immediately Krauser lifted Chris's good arm and placed it over his shoulder, then placed the other on his side to keep him held steady.

"Lets move."

And they did. They made it to the front doors, Krauser momentarily releasing him to reach out and open the door..and Chris caught a shotgun blast in the side. The power of the ammo in the gun sent him flying back and he hit the ground hard. He began to scream. The brunette couldn't stop it. He'd never felt so much pain in his life. It felt like his whole goddamn side was on fire.

The agony was all he could concentrate on now. Vaguely he saw a man in black combat gear, wearing a gas mask and carrying an assault rifle, mow down the waiting three men who'd been outside the doors with the ambush for Chris, with a spray of bullets. The men had likely been hired security of Wesker's, finally come to see what was happening in the foyer of the mansion they'd been charged with guarding. He wondered if the guards ever could have foreseen that they would, or could for that matter, be murdered by another who was in all likelihood working for Wesker too. The man said something to Krauser and he heard the scarred man call him HUNK. It seemed an odd thing to call someone to Chris, but he didn't dwell on it because fresh waves of pain swept through his body as Krauser picked him up and carried him out the doors with an arm hooked under his knees and the other arm around his back.

His eyes rolled to the back of his skull as he lost consciousness. The loss of consciousness must have been brief because when he next opened his eyes, he could still see the mansion. He cursed loudly and screamed for a God he couldn't bring himself to believe in anymore after all that had happened in his life. The agent became aware he was being carried up a short flight of steps and he realized this HUNK , who was leading the way in front of them, had led them onto a large plane.

They moved through the aisle, along empty seats, and to the back where a long desk was attached to the back wall. HUNK shoved random papers and other objects that were on the table, off of it, and Krauser placed him on the table as gently as possible under the circumstances of Chris squirming and screaming because of the shotgun bullet fragments in his side. It had been a scattershot so he had several areas burning with hot metal.

Fingers probed the side wound and the brunette reached down to get rid of them, they were exacerbating the pain. Krauser took hold of Chris's hand and moved it out of the way so he could continue investigating how bad it was. The hand returned, followed by Chris cussing some more and telling him to leave it alone.

"Do we have any pain meds?" Krauser queried, glancing at HUNK.

Someone else answered him however. "There's a medical kit in the storage area on your left, HUNK."

It was, of course, Albert Wesker. The blonde appeared in Chris's line of sight, head tilted down to look at him on the table and was the one to stop Chris from shoving Krauser's hand away a third time.

"He's helping you, Chris. Be a good boy and let him."

"Why won't you die?" the agent asked through gritted teeth as Krauser went to work on the wound to his side again. It was something he had wondered each time he saw him so why not ask while he felt like screaming out loud, not from the pain any longer, but from the frustration of once again being captured by Wesker.

"Charming as always I see. Well it may be possible I just can't die." Wesker told him.

Chris scoffed, which he then followed with a soft whine as a needle pushed into his arm. HUNK had returned with the pain medication. He grew quiet as almost immediately he felt the drug taking affect and the pain dulled to a bearable level, though it now reminded him of his other wounds. His eyes seemed unable to focus and he stared up at the ceiling of the plane, vaguely aware the engine of the plane had started up at some point and the large aircraft was moving.

"Got it."

The BSAA agent shifted his gaze to watch Krauser examining what must have been the last of the bullet fragments he'd pulled from Chris's side with a pair of tweezers. He set it aside and worked on stopping the bleeding and disinfecting the injury. He watched the man work for awhile and then a sensible thought finally broke through the drug-induced haze his mind had been for a time.

"How did you even know I was there?"

Wesker had disappeared since he'd been shot up with the drug and HUNK remained silent. That left Krauser who answered without pausing from what he was doing.

"A live surveillance video of the mansion's foyer. We were looking at the monitors and saw you on them."

"And let me guess, the reason you were looking at them in the first place is because your crack team of security hires couldn't manage to notice my intrusion, let alone the two Wesker children sneaking around the place so you had to check things out yourself periodically." Chris winced when Krauser sat him up to tightly wind bandages around his waist.

The scarred man didn't say anything to his words but instead informed him the clothes would have to be cut off and Chris didn't fight him on it. His clothing was a mere pair of hospital scrubs now torn and bloody, he wasn't exactly attached to them. For the first time, HUNK moved since injecting the pain medication, and he helped the agent stay in a seated position as Krauser removed everything. He spent the next few minutes removing the handgun bullets from the brunette's thighs and taking the knife out, bandaging those areas as well. Then he moved to stand behind Chris to get a better look at where he'd been stabbed in the back. Chris's mind went over the events of that night and he wondered what was going to happen now. He couldn't stay here.

"Why are they so fascinated in you, Chris?"

The brunette glanced up to find Wesker standing in front of him with his arms crossed over his chest. He didn't answer the tyrant and felt Krauser finishing up with his back, placing a patch over the stab wound. Then his fingers moved across his back and landed on his left shoulder.

"We're going to have to take care of this, you ready for that?" the buff, blonde-haired man asked him.

Chris glanced over at the speaker and looked rather doubtful. He was in plenty of pain already without causing more by having his dislocated arm put back into place. It seemed he wasn't going to be given a choice in the matter however, when he felt a gloved hand take ahold of his limp arm. Wesker had come closer to the table and had Chris's arm in his grasp.

"Ah, hell...just do it," he said reluctantly.

HUNK moved over to Wesker, who leaned slightly to speak quietly so no one else could hear, and then the black uniformed man walked out of sight. At the same time, Krauser held Chris firmly around the shoulders and chest to keep his body from moving as the blonde tyrant then yanked hard on the arm. He yelled out as white-hot pain seared through him and then it faded as the arm locked rightfully into place. Chris moved his left arm around a bit, testing its flexibility out. It felt much better.

"Thanks." Chris said, directing the gratitude to Krauser as he hopped off the table, and almost immediately keeled over.

He clutched onto the edge of the table and steadied himself, deciding that maybe he should take things slower since he wasn't exactly healed yet or anything. He felt a grip on his good shoulder and back and he knew it was Wesker. Despite who had their hands on him, he allowed himself to be helped into new clothing identical to his previous combat clothing he'd had on in Excella's facility before ending up in the hospital. Where could Wesker possibly be acquiring these clothes for him? Chris wasn't sure he even wanted to know. After he was dressed, feeling like a child for needing the help, he let Wesker lead him over to one of the seats in the aisle on the plane and took a seat. Wesker remained standing, peering down at him through dark lenses.

"Chris, what did they want from you?"

Krauser came around the other side and sat in the seat next to Chris, passing him a small bag which contained several pills.

"For the pain."

Chris accepted the pain killers. His chin was gripped, his face forcefully turned to look up at the tyrant.

"What-do-they-want-from-you?" Wesker asked, now crouching by his seat.

"I don't know."

"You must have some idea."

"Nope."

"Really? Because you usually seem to find something out of everything that you're involved in."

Wesker had stood back up and looking down at him once again, he questioned, "Why, Chris? Why are they so interested? Surely they said something enlightening to you."

The brunette didn't see any point in lying. The tyrant always knew when he was lying and he didn't feel like getting tortured at the moment for the information, which was a possibility since it was Wesker doing the questioning.

"Well..every time they find me they mess around with me instead of killing me outright. A sign they either like to talk too much..kinda like you Wesker."

The tyrant did not respond to his snarky comment but instead prompted him. "Either that, or...?"

"Or the intention of their attack wasn't to kill."

"Because.." Wesker began and then finished with his presumption. "Their objective was capture, not kill."

Chris fiddled with his fingers and sighed softly. "Yeah, that's probably it too. Just my luck."

"Here. You left this behind."

The BSAA agent stared at the Samurai Edge handgun resting loosely in one of Wesker's gloved hands. He accepted the weapon without a word, finding his eyes taken in by the piece of metal. Such a small thing, a gun, but this type of gun in particular held meaning for him. It represented his past. This was the exact model gun he had been given as a STARS member and skilled marksman. This gun meant more to him than just that though. Now, the weapon reminded him of the good things he managed to accomplish while he was stuck in all the bullshit. Like destroying the mansion which he was now certain had contained experiments since even the Weskers who had shown up made mention of bio-weaponry.

Chris didn't know how long he was going to be held captive by Wesker, or whether those four Wesker children would eventually get to him, but there was one thing he did know. He didn't want to die. What he wanted was to see Jill again. He wanted to be sure Sheva was all right and he didn't want Claire to be left without a brother either. And as always, there was work to be done yet for him, terrorists and bio-attacks to be prevented. He was going to survive this. He was..right?


	12. Resistance to Evil in Self-Denial

_**Resistance to Evil in Self-Denial**_

"Get off me!"

"Realize your resistance merely serves to amuse me."

"Shut up, Wesker!"

Chris could do nothing as he was dragged out of a car which had awaited all of them at the airport and taken them to a building he did not recognize. It appeared to be a facility of some kind and the only thing he could see around him were trees and more trees. He wasn't even sure where he was anymore. This wasn't looking good for him. Especially when he was so injured that running would be quite the accomplishment. Wesker got him to the front door and that was when he chose to elbow the other as hard as he could in the throat. Enough to get him to release his grip but unfortunately Krauser was ready and waiting to grab hold of him in Wesker's place.

A frustrated yell passed through his lips and then he was shoved inside the doors. The place was lit up, people walking to and fro. By all appearances, it was a regular place of business. At least that's what Chris could of imagined, if not for the enormous red and white logo of the Umbrella Corporation covering the tile flooring directly before where the five of them were standing at the front entrance. The scarred man shoved him forward a little bit further, releasing him, and Chris watched as Excella sauntered over to stand at the center of the large lobby of the five story facility and spun on her heels back to face him.

"As you can see, this place belonged to Umbrella once upon a time. But now, it belongs to me. Of course, the facility in Kijuju was much preferred but I thought it wise to have a near equivalent backup location. This is it. Enjoy. I hear you're going to play a very big role in our work to come."

"You bitch!"

A gloved hand solidly connected to the back of his head. "Manners, Chris."

"Won't-you-just-shut-up?"

"Ha ha. I'll make you a proposal," the older man offered. "If you can make me, I'll keep quiet."

A silent glare was the only response he could give in return. Wesker always knew how to get under his skin and it annoyed the hell out of him. He grimaced automatically when Krauser placed a hand on him again, steering him to a doorway on the left.

"Move."

When he shot the heavily muscled man a glare too, it got him a grin and another shove to urge him to keep walking. He did, not knowing what other option there really was for him, and passed through a set of double doors just ahead of Ada and Krauser. There was a long white-walled, brightly lit hallway which lay before them. The Italian woman pushed on through them, barely acknowledging they continued to exist around her as her mind became occupied with speaking to the one she never could forget existed.

"I suppose we should take care of his wounds first and foremost, yes Albert?" without waiting for an answer, she went on. "The medical room isn't far."

She paused mid-step to turn on one heel, her way of emphasizing how important her words apparently were, as she tilted her head over her shoulder to peer at Wesker. "The lab designated for your primary use is on the second basement level. I can take you there after-"

"I will go there now."

"Uh, ah, yes, of course. I will take you there," she stammered out.

"I am every bit capable of finding my own way. Ada, the samples?"

The woman now in a dress a shade of red more closely related to the color pink, patted her left thigh. "I have them here."

"Ada, you will accompany me to the lab. Excella, take Chris to the medical room and Krauser will go with you to ensure our unwilling guest..behaves."

"I won't be your experiment!" Chris shouted. "Tell me something, Wesker. I just blew up one of your facilities. Why aren't you more..I don't know, upset?"

It didn't do much for Chris's rising anger at the level of fear also rising inside him when his demand for some sort of expected reaction out of Wesker brought him a thing he did not expect. A smirk in the typical cocky Wesker fashion. The response was as obnoxious as he should have anticipated however.

"As you can see, I have another facility right here, all ready for use. Your meddling was an inconvenience, nothing more. I need not concern myself with a thing I do not deem a threat. Like you, Chris."

The tyrant was walking away with Ada following closely after him. Ada glanced back at Chris though, seemingly trying to communicate something with her eyes, but he couldn't read them. He couldn't understand what she wanted to tell him. Chris was trapped and he didn't know why she did nothing to get him out of his increasingly threatening situation. Wesker sought to use him for experiments and if it happened, things were going to get a lot worse for him. The Asian woman claimed she did not help him because with Wesker he was apparently safer. Could she say the same was going to be true for him in the very near future?

Chris grounded down on his bottom set of teeth and before Wesker could get out of earshot he yelled after him a reminder. "I've stopped you before, Wesker! There's nothing that says this time will be any different."

The inhuman being hesitated at the doors and then he was going on through them. It was enough for Chris though. He had drawn out a reaction which would suffice as satisfactory for the time being. It wasn't like he had much to keep up his optimism these days so he would take what he could get. As little as that might be.

Excella's haughty tone burst through his slightly uplifting thoughts. "If you are quite finished, we can proceed?"

"Shove it, Excella," he told her and walked on past her in the vague direction he figured the medical area was located. "I may have to stay here, but I don't have to like it."

"Oh, I don't know," Krauser began. "There are ways to say..control one's actions. Or have you forgotten about your friend? The female who lost certain pigmentation to her. I have to say, she looked a hell of a lot better before the color change. Ah well, the experiment with her turned out to be a bust. Guess, we'll just have to try a little harder this time."

Chris fought to quash the intense desire to smash the other man's face in for even mentioning Jill. He felt responsible for what had happened to her in Wesker's hands and so it incited that guilt whenever any enemy of his dared bring her up in conversation. She was free now though and that was something so he tried to focus on that fact as he clenched and unclenched his fists, continuing down the hallway. When he reached a divide in the hall, a glance to his right found him staring at a set of double doors. The words, "MEDICAL WARD", were printed in big block letters above the doors. Excella hadn't been kidding when she said their destination wasn't far.

He attempted to play it calm. "Cool."

Pushing through the doors and strolling into the ward, he was surprised to see how large the room was. There were a couple of people over to the right, one sitting at a desk and the other leaning far over it. The flirtation taking place was obvious and the guy practically toppled over on his ass trying to appear like he wasn't. When he saw Chris, his bewilderment became confused and then suspicious.

"Hey! Who are you? You can't be in here!"

"Oh, relax, you ignorant fool. He is with me. Now find yourself something to do or I will find a more suitable location for you...Like the basement levels, perhaps?"

"Uh..no, no thank you! I'll get to work, right away! My apologies ma'am!"

"Wipe that ridiculous expression off your face and leave," was all Excella had to say to the male worker in return.

He wasted no time in scurrying off into some room beyond the main medical ward area that Chris couldn't get a good view of other than a doorway. Meanwhile, Excella had wandered off to a counter on the other side of the room. She set about locating and gathering various items before motioning for him to sit on one of the lab chairs. He did so but not before hesitating when he noticed the wrist and ankle restraints the chair contained. Krauser followed him over, scanning his body briefly as he sat on the edge of the seat with straps. There were no strong urges to be strapped down at the moment and so he kept away from them, acting like the chair was a fire that could burn him at any time.

Always one for survival and perseverance, the next thing he did was scan the room with the hope that he was fortunate enough for ammo to have been left lying around. Wesker had returned his handgun to him back on the plane and it was currently tucked away in the thigh holster on his right leg. They had given him identical clothing to what he had been wearing previously as well, including the utility belt and thigh holster for his weapon. It did little to calm his nerves. Not when it probably would have been much easier to just leave him as he was, practically naked and completely helpless. His eyes returned to stare blandly in front of himself. No such luck with the discovery of random ammo so his thoughts returned to the direct problem at hand.

They wanted to experiment on him, that much he already knew. The P30 chemical used on Jill was by all indications, what they were going to use on him, eventually. First they would need to modify the version Jill had been pumped continuously with if they were going to have any better success with it. This line of thinking brought him around to deciding his former captain had probably chosen to keep him in his typical choice of clothing in order to further enjoy total control over a BSAA agent and former subordinate in STARS. In other words, Chris would be Chris by all appearances; but with the P30 coursing through his veins, it would only be skin deep.

"Asshole..." he murmured.

"Excuse me?"

He hadn't seen Excella walk over to stand next to where he was sitting, legs dangling in a bored manner. His eyes began to roll in the typical way that occurred whenever he laid eyes on the Italian snob, but he managed to restrain himself with a quick blink to hide the motion. He realized she didn't deserve such an adverse reaction when at the moment, she was trying to help him. _Help him like a lamb before the slaughter..._

There were far too many injuries to not be in constant pain though. Even if she was only healing him to allow him to be used for experimentation later, if it got rid of the pain then it was okay by him. For now he would play their game, go along with it. Not that there was much choice. This was the thing to do right now. Stay alive and wait for an opening to escape. It was all he could do.

"Sorry...Wasn't referring to you," he told her.

"Were you referring to me then? Cause I can think of a few better names to describe me." Krauser said with a grin.

Chris shook his head. "Nope and you're right, I can think of more than a few for you."

"This will sting a bit."

He heard the words spoken by Excella, moving his eyes over to her in time to be sprayed all across his body. The fine mist caused him to flinch and shut his eyes, turning away from the woman. It was more than a sting and pure agony spread across him as he felt bones shift back into place, muscle tissue fixing abruptly, and skin growing and healing itself. All this in a matter of seconds.

The pain receded and dulled, eventually fading out altogether, and he could tell he was essentially fully healed. He was left feeling sore and exhausted though. Nothing could ever be entirely fixed without some sort of side effect. Still, the results of the first aid spray, a medical product developed by Umbrella, continued to amaze him. The item was truly a miracle cure, at least for non-mortal wounds. Such a product could make quite the difference out there in mass use among the world's population. Umbrella likely found it to be something they didn't want to share. Why help others when they could simply help themselves?

"You're thinking too much, Chris."

He twisted his body around to face Krauser.

The man tapped his finger against the side of his own head. "You tend to frown when your mind is racing."

Chris narrowed his eyes as they locked onto the other's own. "Can you blame me for thinking constantly? I'm surrounded by evil psychopaths out to destroy the world."

"You have these predetermined notions about everything, don't ya, hero? Everything isn't plain black or white. You don't _really_ believe people are either pure good or pure evil, do you? Everyone's got a little of both in them, even you, Chris."

"Yeah, I know people can have both. They have the choice whether to let the dark side of themselves out though. At least I get Wesker's penchant for doing the wrong thing and being so egotistical that he would think it's the right thing somehow. The guy never had a chance. He was pretty much set up from the get go to be some kind of tool for Umbrella. But you, you were good. Then you let your greed for power get the better of you. Now you're just like that tyrannical monstrosity."

Krauser made a noise resembling what was probably contemplation before answering. "We're trying to make the world a better place. We're saving people from themselves by doing what we're doing. This world of ours is a catastrophe heading towards its own self-destruction."

"Ugh, you sound just like him."

"Do you understand what I'm saying, Chris? Do you understand who we are to this world?"

"Yeah, dangerous. Men who will invariably make the world worse off. That's why I will stop you."

"Do you really think you're in a position to stop anything Wesker has planned?"

Chris's eyes shone, expression transitioning into one of determination. "I'm right where I need to be."

"You really believe that, don't you?" Krauser asked him but in a knowing manner. Without waiting for a response which he already knew, he added, "I look forward to it."

"To what?"

The bigger man smiled. "For when the day comes when we fight again. A true fight, no interruptions from..outside distractions."

"Krauser, we've never had a real fight."

"Hmm..not a physical one, not yet. But I don't underestimate you like Wesker does. You are a formidable opponent, Chris. So I have no doubt the day will come when you make good on your promise to try and stop us."

He retorted quickly, words coming almost automatic. "I didn't say try, I said _will_."

Krauser's smile widened further and then silence reigned. But it wasn't awkward, it could even be considered comfortable. This was apparently equally disturbing to the mercenary working for Wesker as his smile went away and he stared at Chris. He looked right back at Krauser and it was as though they were each contemplating how they had just had a normal conversation and wondering how it was possible.

He was first to look away and he forced his attention onto Excella who was busying herself with things unknown right beside him. It occurred to him that he should probably be concerned about what the Tricell employee was doing, but his mind was too busy racing with other thoughts, unwanted thoughts. Right now he didn't want to think about the normalcy of his talk with Krauser and how he was beginning to move past what had been done to him..somehow. At least with the blame. He was far from over what had happened to him. He doubted he ever fully would be. But he found himself not blaming Krauser for being the instigator of his immense suffering in that room. There was someone else he blamed far more for his torture and subsequent mind screw up. Someone he blamed for a lot more than what had happened to him in the more recent weeks, but also for what he'd been going through his entire life as the casualties mounted.

Albert Wesker's betrayal had changed everything for him. And that was a stain he could not remove from his soul. Wesker would be forever imprinted inside of his mind, and now more recently, his body too. He was a poison that Chris just kept coming back to, re-infecting himself in his attempts to eradicate and cleanse it completely. All he ever succeeded in doing though, was allowing it to seep in further. It made it all the more difficult to get rid of the next time and he knew if this continued, one day it would kill him.


End file.
